“The dreaded virus of Coronavirus has caused so many deaths and people are scared to move freely out of their home” said Dr. B.Suresh, President, Pharmacy Council of India, New Delhi. He was speaking during the inaugural session of the two day International Conference on “Emerging Techniques in Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery: Current challenges and Future Prospects” at the campus of Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran. More than 40 eminent speakers and industry experts from all across the globe including USA, Belgium, Italy, and Dubai joined the conference to apprise students and budding researchers of the current issues in drug discovery and development.
“Due to heavy costs involved in the research of life-saving drugs for threatening diseases like Coronavirus it is important for Industry and Academic Institutions to collaborate together to conduct joint research and wage a war against dreaded diseases” added Dr. B. Suresh, President, Pharmacy Council of India, New Delhi. He further added that, “Instead of varied institutions investing in their respective specialised centres, all dedicated to the same area of research, the focus should be on uniting together with the objective to use the resources efficiently and staying prepared for such epidemic breakouts.”Talking about the new developments in drug delivery systems, he said “ The changing times have brought important alterations in the way we intake drugs.
With the coming up of advanced medical devices, the methods of drug administration are transforming significantly. These devices have the capability to target at a more cellular level. This requires the young minds, not only pertaining to the Pharma industry but also in other spheres including engineering to upscale their knowledge and analytical skills to make full use of these advanced systems. The issue right now is not the dearth of qualified individuals but competent ones. For individuals to be competent, the need is for them to continue to learn even after the completion of their education and focus on acquiring more expert knowledge as per the latest developments.”Enlisting the notable reforms made by PCI over the years, he talked about how with the introduction of the National Curriculum for Pharmacy in 2014-15 brought the much-needed change to the 3-decade old syllabi. To further strengthen this, two new programs are also under consideration of being introduced by the end of 2020 – M. Pharma Pharmaceutical Systems Management focussing on the advances, engineering aspects and the management of new technologies, and a course in Medical devices, which is a rapidly expanding industry in India. Not only this, there are plans to substitute PhDs with super specialist coursed that are strongly driven by practice. “Indian drug industry imbibes a huge scope for its aspirants, and to make a rewarding career into this field, individuals must inculcate business and marketing skills within themselves as it will open up wide options for them to excel besides research”, shared Chairman (CGC) Satnam Singh Sandhu and President (CGC) Rashpal Singh Dhaliwal.