The acute toxicity of typical pollutants (sulfate and sulfide)in high-sulfate pharmaceutical wastewater and effluent from SPAC reactor was tested using the 15 min half inhibitory concentration (IC50)to photobacterium.The results showed that the IC50 of sulfate and sulfide was 12077.8，78.1 mg·L-1，respectively; the IC50 of raw pharmaceutical wastewater，effluents from SPAC reactor with influents of 6-fold and 3-fold dilution were 64.5，44.7 and 78.9 times，respectively.The maximum volumetric COD，sulfate removal rates of SPAC reactor were 5.76，1.83 kg·m-3·d-1，COD and sulfate removal efficiency were 54.1% and 71.8% when the influent concentration was increased at a fixed HRT; the maximum volume COD，sulfate removal rates were 7.52，1.90 kg·m-3·d-1，COD and sulfate removal efficiency was 72.8% and 80.0% when the HRT was shortened at a fixed influent concentration.Low concentrations with high-flow rate made SAPC reactor run more efficiently.If the influent concentration exceeds inhibition concentration threshold，the pharmaceutical wastewater has a significant effect on performance of SPAC reactor.However，SPAC process showed a good ability to adapt the toxicity of high-sulfate pharmaceutical wastewater after a long term operation (about 3 months).The raw pharmaceutical wastewater should be diluted more than 5.13 folds to avoid the inhibition at the beginning of operation，while influent concentration could be increased to a dilution of 3.32-fold to cut the operation cost in the later.