The undergraduate and postgraduate programmes
should prepare and equip the graduates in meeting
the needs of the employers, imbibing a culture of
innovation and collaboration, that our industry needs
to be successful and relevant in this century
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pharmaceutical sciences such as modelling and
simulation sciences should become more widely
available for both basic and advanced trainingapproval, resulting in a growing need for
appropriately trained graduates. Per-
sonalized medicine is also accounting
for a growing number of drugs in the
pipeline, estimated between 12-50%.
Emerging areas
Predictive methods are a growing
research approach called comparative
effectiveness research.
Comparative effectiveness research
(CER) uses retrospective studies
of large populations to make predic-
tions about drug use. Multiscale sys-
tems models, such as those that might
include biology/physiology/pharma-
cology/pathophysiology elements,
concurrently are also more commonly
used to predict clinical success with
experimental data.
The growing inefficiency and cost of
research and development has spawned
research in other predictive sciences,
such as quantitative risk analysis and
risk management. In summary, many
of these emerging research areas have
been designed to improve prediction
of drug safety, clinical efficacy or cost-
effectiveness at lower cost and more
efficiently. Predictive sciences, includ-
ing database management, biostatistics,
programming and modeling, are likely
to become increasingly important com-
ponents of drug discovery and develop-
ment as a means to offset rising costs
and lengthy studies.Dynamic curriculum
A curriculum that can fuel the above
trends and produce UG, PG and Doc-
toral level graduates who are equipped
to understand and pursue careers and
research in these emerging areas, is
essential. As mentioned above, emerg-
ing and growing scientific areas in the
pharmaceutical sciences such as mod-
elling and simulation sciences, biolog-
ics, clinical and translational science
and nanotechnologies should become
more widely available for both basic
and advanced training throughout
their education. Soft skills should also
become available to students along the
foundational courses.
The pharmacy faculty should also be
developed and supported to lead and
contribute significantly to fields such as
cell and systems biology, genomics, pro-
teomics and nanotechnology. Teaching
and learning processes and programsmust apply innovation and technology
to enable both educational quality and
efficiency simultaneously.
The traditional silo and classroom
approaches to education that are hin-
dering our ability to be efficient and
responsive to the needs of our profes-
sion should give way to shared work-
shops, courses and webinars offered
through or by professional organisa-
tions, statutory bodies or collabora-
tively between a network of schools to
avoid repeatedly having to develop and
teach programmes to a small number
of students. Collaborative models need
to be designed where some subjects are
outsourced to other institutions, and/
or certain faculty are shared between
institutions.Aligning with regulations
As the future of the pharmaceutical
sciences is changing and has changed
so dramatically in recent years, strong
leadership is required to steer phar-
macy education through this period
of transition. Taking into account
the future trends in the pharmaceu-
tical industry and the profession, the
Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has
brought out five new regulations that
envisage bringing about a paradigm
shift in pharmaceutical sciences educa-
tion, training and research.
These regulations will not only pro-
vide the much needed direction, growth
and leadership for new curriculum
identification, creation, sharing and
offering, but also nurture these initia-
tives through survey research, creation
of partnerships with stakeholders, crea-
tion of faculty and institutional devel-
opment for the transition, best practices
for intellectual property generated by
these innovative collaborations and
assistance with the cultural change that
will be needed to realize these changes,
not only in the educational programs
but the colleges themselves.Shutterstock