The Indian Pharmaceutical Congress provides a deeper understanding of the profession. The 67th edition, being held in Mysuru, the cultural capital of Karnataka and an intellectual hub with the presence of leading research centres, is designed to be a win-win situation for all participants.
Stating that IPC captures the spirit of the pharmaceutical profession, Dr. B Suresh, Vice Chancellor, JSS University, Mysuru, President, Pharmacy Council of India and chairman local organizing committee, 67th IPC, in an interview with Nandita Vijay tells " We are confident that the IPC being held in JSS University will give a new direction for the professionals of this sector. It will be an educative experience".
What are the highlights of IPC 67th edition and the key differentiating factors over the past events?
In this 67th IPC being held in our campus, the key differentiating factor would be the active engagement of leadership teams from the pharmaceutical industry, regulatory, education, community and hospital pharmacy sectors to come together for a discussion The main objective is to devise a framework on how the country should move forward and make it a ‘Healthy India-Swasth Bharat’, which is in sync with the theme of this year’s event ‘Pharma Vision 2020: Pharmacists for a Healthy India’. We intend to reiterate the role a pharmacist to achieve this. Many of the leaders that we have met have assured that they will be participating on all the three-days. We know that involvement of leadership teams of the sector could drive the required change.
Another differentiating factor of this event is with regards to the scientific symposium. We have taken a visionary approach to the topics for discussion rather than go in-depth over one topic with a scientific parameter. While science is equally important, we have worked out a system to see if the sessions could arrive at devising a strategy; if the leaders of industry, regulatory and the academia could come out with some recommendations that could be placed before the government to transform this sector.
Further, this IPC has taken support from the government machinery and will see the representation of secretaries from the department of pharmaceuticals, health and family welfare besides commerce. There is need for a cohesive involvement of the government because unless they have a feel of this sector, they will not be able to give the full support that we need in terms of reforms and regulations. Therefore, we largely view this event as taking the image of Indian pharmaceuticals to a larger audience. Efforts to involve the medical professionals too has been made. The president of the American Medical Association Dr. Robert M. Wah, along with Thomas E Menighan, Executive Vice President, American Pharmacists Association’ Washington, USA would be here. In fact, the American Pharmacists Association provides guidance not just on pharmacy trade, but on drug pricing and affordable medication which sees the US health policy being driven by their proposals. Their presentations will give an idea for Indian associations how to influence our government. Therefore we are sure that from this platform we could motivate our community pharmacists to think bigger and better.
IPC for the first time has accredited the congress sessions as Continuing Education Programme (CEP) and there is an advisory to participants to receive a certificate of attendance. What are your comments on this?
Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has come out with the Pharmacy Practice Regulation 2015. This makes it mandatory for the pharmacist to do CEP to extend his registration with the respective state councils once in five years. This CEP will be provided either by the Council or the state associations or we would hire experts. The Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association has applied to PCI to recognize an acceptable CEP to register with the state boards . Now for the first time, PCI has given recognition to this as a credit point. So this 67th IPC is an approved certification for the pharmacists to go and register themselves with respective associations. This is the first step to ensure high quality of deliberations.
Going forward, this will be a benchmark for qualifying other conferences in pharmaceuticals. The participants entry will be barcoded at every conference halls. There will be an observer from the PCI to judge the contents and quality of the speaker’s presentation. There are three parallel sessions and two roundtables for regulatory, industry academia and pharmacy practice. Therefore, there is something for everyone. For the first time it is designed as a session track. This enables the participant to select the track which is of interest to him. There are 62 Indian and international speakers coming in as panelists and chairs. There will be different levels of interactions which will emerge as a debate-dialogue on the stage.
How was JSS University opted to host this event? How many visitors are expected at the event and how will the event benefit them?
JSS University was opted to host the 67th IPC because of its excellence in education and particularly in its pharmacy college. It has taken a lead in introducing many subjects like pharmacy practice, pharmaceutical sciences and regulatory programme which has taken off well. Therefore, we felt the need for experts not just from academia but industry and regulators to come here and have an experience of this event. Moreover, Mysore is an intellectual hub with the presence of leading research centres Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) , Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore University and information technology companies like Infosys and Wipro besides the presence of a handful of pharma companies that focus on global markets. But the pharma industry has not grown in Mysore. So one of my wishful thinking is that the 67th IPC would be able to attract investors into this city at least to set up research and development centres. The access to manpower and ideal resources for science research are easily available here to stimulate such an activity. We already have a vision to develop JSS University as a global engagement centre where pharma companies can open up research units in the campus which could drive drug and device discoveries. One lacuna in the pharma industry is the lack of long-term projects for research . Now such partnerships have been discussed and leaders in pharma are excited to be part of this IPC edition.
Though IPC, considered as the mother of all pharma events in the country, often begins with a bang, somehow fails to keep up the momentum . Pls comment?
For me IPC captures the spirit of the pharmaceutical profession. Now this spirit cannot always have a scientific outcome. However, it is a platform to engage, enable face-to-face interactions and have a better understanding of the existing scenario of the profession. The 67th IPC with its scientific sessions and leadership participations will make it memorable for the visitor. There is going to be something for everyone ensuring that the participant has maximum returns for his investment on time for being here. Without this there is no identity of this profession. Though with advancements in technology, one need not be actually present in a conference as video conferencing and YouTube could provide an update of such events, but without being physically present for IPC, a pharma professional has no identity.
As the chairman of this three-day exposition, what are the challenges you faced in organizing the event and attracting industry participants?
There have been several challenges. But it is the efficient and resourceful teams from both Mysuru and pan-India who have worked tirelessly to ensure that it will be successful. Initially there was anxiety on how to handle an event of such scale in Mysuru. Now we are confident that the 67th IPC being held in JSS University will give a new direction to the professionals of this sector. It is will be an educative experience. As the chairman of this exposition, I met several industry heads like for instance Dilip Sanghvi, CMD, Sun Pharma which is the largest company in the sector to a small enterprise. It is all together a different game to understand the multifarious needs of the pharma sector.
As the president of PCI and with a large gathering of pharmacy college principals and management, could you give us an indication on the likely meetings planned and outcomes in terms of change of syllabus etc.?
Syllabus change is there. We will upload the same in mid-January 2016. PCI has authority to update and upload the same any time. There is no need for a government permission for this. We have been provided with the full autonomy for this. An important point is that, the new syllabus will give an increased thrust to Information Communication Technology(ICT). This is expected to transform the teaching landscape in pharmacy education. The Council is also deliberating on an open source platform. There is a very exciting syllabus for B Pharm and M Pharma in both annual and semester basis. This syllabus will be strongly integrated with ICT. One of the crux is that ICT enabled education will stall the lack of quality education because of non-availability of experienced teachers across remote places.
If access to the experienced teachers is provided using technology, it will enable students in Latur or Pune or Delhi to have common access to information. The Council is keen to deliberate on this but this is a bit too ambitious programme. We are also looking to create an open source platform which will enable any teacher or student have access to information or even put up an expert report if there is a committee to vet the contents and clear it for uploading. This will be for national and global access. The pharmacy professionals can view the same for more information on any topic.
How do you see the pharmacy practice regulations to be a game changer for community pharmacists?
This is a game changer for community pharmacists. There is no doubt about this. The need to ensure ‘one common syllabus’ initially is recommendatory. However, the regulations are compulsory and the syllabus is recommendatory because some colleges could already have a subject and we will need to ensure some adjustments for a few months. However, PCI is looking at 2018 to make it uniform and we are giving a 20 per cent leverage to some course addition. For instance, if some university is strong in chemical engineering and wants to add a subject like process chemistry, then we should permit it. But there should not be any drastic change in the structure and syllabus because it will impact the overall quality.
Now coming to the PCI-AICTE dual control on pharmacy education, what are your views on this?
The regulation for PCI to come out of the AICTE ambit is in place. ER 2015(Education Regulations) is now being submitted to the government. The first phase of regulations is in place. In the second phase we had a successful dialogue with AICTE for a de-merger. Once this is through, the government will take a call on whether one regulatory agency: PCI would be suffice for the profession. If PCI-AICTE supports this view, then the government will also realize that there is no need to duplicate the control of pharmacy education. I don't think it will happen overnight and may take a couple of years. PCI-AICTE needs to tell the government that there is an efficient mechanism to regulate pharmacy profession under a single authority. The whole system is expected to function in a transparent and achievable manner. We are striving towards it and the government will not hesitate to take a positive a decision on this.
Where does India stand on the pharmacy education front globally?
In terms of numbers, we are producing a large number of pharmacy graduates and even the course content wise, India is comparable in terms of syllabus to any country. However, there is a need for the enhancement of quality. We need to ensure that quality standards of education and teaching is uniform across India. Currently, this uniformity is only in some pockets. My dream is to see a student in the metro and rural area receive the same educational exposure and training. We need to move from quality control to quality assurance and then to quality advancement. So it is a three phase approach. We are now at quality control stage and are already talking about quality assurance. If there are institutions which are already having the quality assurance, then we are looking at them to progress to quality advancement stage.