New Delhi, September 15, 2021: The Indian Pharmaceutical Association-Delhi State Branch (IPA-DSB) organized a webinar on “Pharmaceutical Industry – Opportunities for Pharmacists” on August 28, 2021. More than 30 participants comprising the office bearers & executive council members of IPA-DSB, representatives from other pharmaceutical associations, pharma industry and students attended the online session.
Giving the welcome address, Kalhan Bazaz, President, IPA-DSB and Editor, The Indian Pharmacist stated, “Today’s webinar is the first in the weekly series which we have started from today. Every Saturday we will discuss topics which are relevant to the pharmacy profession in current times and will be delivered by experts in the field and cater to the professionals from the pharma industry, institutions, drug regulatory field, community & hospital pharmacies, and offcourse some topics for our pharmacy students as well.” Bazaz also gave a glimpse of the activities conducted by IPA on a regular basis. He ended, “If any participant has any topic in mind, then he or she can share with us and we will definitely try to take up the topic in our subsequent sessions.” Dr Neeraj Kumar, Hon. Secretary, IPA-DSB and Senior Clinical Research Manager, Translumina Therapeutics, Delhi was the moderator of the session.
Prof Roop K. Khar, Mentor, IPA-DSB and Director, B.S. Anangpuria Group of Institutions, Faridabad gave introductory remarks on the main theme of the webinar. He said, “Pharma industry is a sunrise industry without doubt. However, pharma industry is not a single subject, it’s a interdisciplinary science and one needs knowledge of various subjects of pharmacy. And for knowledge to be achieved, performance in the profession matters and not the score in exams.” In his talk, Prof Khar also highlighted that the things needed by students to improve overall performance depended upon very thorough knowledge of basic concepts of domain subjects, important skill-sets of subject domain, harness life skills or communication skills, general awareness, and keep continuously progressing & improving in life.
The keynote address was delivered by the guest of honour, Dr Premnath Shenoy, President, IPA-Karnataka State Branch; Senior Associate, Lachman Consultants LLC, New York, USA; and former director of Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance & Patient Safety, AstraZeneca India. In his presentation, the eminent speaker discussed the global pharma industry, drug discovery & development, objectives & value proposition of pharma industry, current status of the Indian pharma industry, career planning & opportunities for pharmacists, and entrepreneurship. Dr Shenoy also discussed about “PlatPharm” – a first-of-its-kind forum specially designed by experienced healthcare industry professionals from various verticals to support and advise students pursuing pharmaceutical sciences in India. With regards to entrepreneurship, he said, “The key aspects of entrepreneurship are: identification of market opportunity, generation of business idea (product or service) to address the opportunity, development of business plan, determination & commitment of resources, and creation of an operating business organization to implement the opportunity / business idea and managing it.” Dr Shenoy concluded, “There are lots of opportunities for graduates and post-graduates as the Indian pharma industry is growing in both domestic and export markets. Also, the opportunities for start-ups in the pharmacy field has increased with government support and funding. Therefore, there is great time ahead for students and I am sure atleast one of the students will think of starting his/her own venture and creating jobs for others.”
After the presentation, a Q&A session was held where the resource person answered queries and cleared doubts of the participants. Finally, the online session ended with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr Neeraj Kumar.
