While the Indian pharmaceutical industry is projected to catapult to a turnover of $ 25 billion by 2010, the industry may have to face severe shortage of pharmacists by that time, unless the authorities initiate urgent measures with short and long-term vision to churn out adequate quality professionals, warn industry experts.

At present the AICTE sanctioned annual intake for D.Pharm is about 25,000 students in about 415 colleges and about 2700 postgraduate seats in select colleges. Around 230 colleges can admit about 13,000 students every year for B.Pharm. By this, at present the Indian pharmacy education scenario has capability to produce only 30-40,000 qualified hands every year to cater to the entire spectrum of requirements of the drug industry and trade. Sources roughly estimate that a $ 25 billion Indian pharma industry may require manpower of at least five times than the current available manpower.

Sources also point out even though there are provisions to churn out about 40,000 professionals every year, numerous seats are lying vacant in many colleges due to various factors. Another major issue is that of graduates discarding the profession, due to various reasons. Migration of Indian pharmacists to other countries in search of lucrative jobs is another major factor that cripples the interests of Indian pharma industry. It is estimated that about 39 per cent of the pharmacists working in US are of Indian origin and majority of pharmacists in the Middle East countries are from India.

As a result, students coming out the reputed colleges are being immediately absorbed by the professional starved Indian pharma, which is growing at 15 per cent every year. For example, 28 leading companies conducted campus interviews at the Bombay College of Pharmacy during last year and absorbed all the successful candidates, note sources.

"Soon the Indian industry may have to recruit manpower from abroad, as happened in the case of our aviation sector where many of our new airline companies are forced to massively recruit crew from abroad to operate their flights. Already I have seen many foreigners working in R&D and production lines of many pharma companies in and around Mumbai. We have to devise long term strategies to meet the future demand" notes Subodh P Priolkar, president, Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA).

With this in mind, IPA will soon launch a nationwide survey among all the pharma companies to assess the long-term manpower requirements of each and every pharma company. IPA is in discussion with a few professional agencies to process the data collected by IPA, which will seek help of pharmacy students to collect data from companies.

The data is likely to be part of a White Paper- 'Vision 2020', which will detail the challenges and requirements of the Indian pharma industry by 2010, to be brought out as an outcome of the deliberations at the forthcoming Indian Pharmaceutical Congress in Mumbai. The White Paper will be presented for immediate action to the Government, said Subodh Priolkar.

Sources also point out that the current quality of pharmacy education is another area of concern, as pharma industry has become highly technology oriented and require highly skilled professionals. The present pharmacy education system is many decades old and needs drastic changes. The proposed changes to revamp the pharmacy curriculum and practices, proposed by the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) about two years ago, is still shuttling between various ministries for approval. Sources hope the bill to amend the PCI Act is likely to be tabled in the Parliament for approval in the ensuing monsoon session.

It may be noted that a recent KPMG India - Chemtech Foundation report projected the potential of the Indian chemical, pharma, bio and process sectors to grow to US $ 100 billion by 2010. The Indian pharmaceutical industry's annual growth rate is about 15 per cent as against the world average of 6 per cent. The Indian pharmaceutical market is expected to reach US$ 13.3 billion by 2006, by another projection.