The Tamil Nadu Pharmaceutical Sciences Welfare Trust (TNPSWT), set up in 1989 with an objective to sponsor lectures, seminars and training for pharmacists and to provide scholarships for students, is planning to widen the area of its services to the medical professionals and the public.

The TNPSWT is unique in offering assistance to the pharmaceutical industry and education through scholarships, sponsorships and the dissemination of pharma information mainly to the students and the industrial professionals under one umbrella, according to sources.

The trust is planning to offer medical professionals with information on specific drugs on topics such as indications or contra indications, mechanism, side effects, drug interactions, toxicity, storage, etc, through its Pharma Information Centre (PIC). The trust established PIC in 1999 to provide crucial in-depth and unbiased information to industrial pharmacy professionals, academicians, researchers, students and medical practitioners, but was so far focusing more on academic and industrial requirements, says Pratima Mathur, Deputy Director, Pharma Information Centre.

In order to provide quality information of international standards to the students and pharmaceutical manufacturers in the state, the TNPSWT is planning to register with Parental Drug Association (PDA) and American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). The trust has already registered as a member of International Society for Life Science Professionals (ISPE) and expects to attract more medical professionals and public towards the centre with the new developments, according to Pratima Mathur.

The information centre receives an average of 300 queries per year, mostly from the pharmacy students and professionals. The Centre expects more queries from the medical professionals and public from next year, she added. The PIC is equipped itself with a range of resources including Pharmacopoeias, pharmaceutical and medical reference books, journals, database from international healthcare series like Ovid and internet facilities for web searching and access. The centre has also tied up with other major drug information centres in the nation to make the information authentic.

One of the main objectives of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Welfare Trust is to promote the learning and development of Pharmaceutical Sciences in all its aspects. Pharma experts associated with the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) Tamil Nadu branch head the sponsorship and scholarship activities of the Trust.

It offers scholarships of Rs.5,000 eachto selected M. Pharm students on their project works, using the interest of a corpus fund raised by the 25 trustees during the formation of the trust. The number of trustees has increased to more than 30 at present, according to the sources. Issuing scholarship to the M.Pharm students studying in any of the colleges in Tamilnadu is a unique policy of the trust, added the sources.