It will also be the first time the two universities' schools of pharmacy have worked on a joint qualification.
Otago's school of pharmacy dean Stephen Duffull said the new qualification would be available from the first semester next year.
Prescribing pharmacists would be required to have the prescribing certificate qualification jointly offered by the universities.
The amendment to the Medicines Act, which would extend prescribing to some pharmacists, has not yet gone through Parliament, but is expected to this year.
Prof Duffull said, in email correspondence from Britain, the schools thought it was logical to share the "enormous amount of work required to get this up and running" so it could get something which met the needs of the pharmacy workforce.
The course, which had yet to complete the Committee on University Academic Programmes process, would involve two papers, one involving the principles of prescribing and the other a prescribing practicum, and was expected to cater for up to 10 students a year.
There had already been many inquiries about the proposed qualification, which would be identical, with papers co-taught by both schools, he said.
The qualification would be limited initially to those pharmacists who had completed a postgraduate qualification in clinical pharmacy, with a minimum level of a postgraduate diploma in clinical pharmacy.
Pharmacy Council chief executive Bronwyn Clark said it was expected there would be some hospital pharmacists interested in prescribing in several areas including oncology, where pharmacists were already determining doses as part of a team.
There would also be pharmacists in the community who were working within general practices.
It was proposed prescribing pharmacists would not work alone but would have to be part of a "collaborative health team".
About 16% of the pharmacist workforce was considered to be in such an environment.
Pharmacists would be unable to dispense their own prescriptions, she said.
It was envisaged there would be few restrictions on what pharmacists working within a team could prescribe, although they would not be able to prescribe anaesthetic medicines.
Ms Clark said in the United KIngdom, where a variety of professions was allowed to prescribe within teams, it had been very successful where there were established relationships "within set parameters".
It was expected Health Work Force New Zealand would set up demonstration sites for pharmacist prescribers in the same way it had for diabetes nurse prescribers.
Ms Clark said the aim of this would be to prove that the proposed extension of the pharmacists' role would be safe and effective.
Prof Duffull said many pharmacists, both in hospital and primary care settings, had high level clinical roles and were involved with advanced medicines management processes.
For these pharmacists, prescribing would be the next "natural step in their provision of healthcare".
