Pharmacy education is now seen to open up new employment opportunities for pharmacy graduates like never before as the medical insurance, clinical research organizations (CROs) and information technology (IT) industries see far more relevance in hiring a qualified pharmacist over candidates from other streams, according to pharmacy colleges.

There are medical insurance companies including Religare, TTK Healthcare, HDFC Ergo and ICICI Prudential approaching pharmacy colleges for campus hiring. For instance, PES College of Pharmacy, Bengaluru has been a preferred campus for many such companies. These sectors prefer qualified pharmacists as right candidates to analyse prescriptions which are a critical component of medical insurance reimbursements, Prof. S Mohan, principal and director, PES College of Pharmacy told Pharmabiz.

A new trend is seen to emerge in the health insurance space as pharmacists are seen to be ideal candidates to evaluate doctors’ prescriptions and assess the technical relevance of medicines. This is an entry level trigger for B Pharm candidates who do not have much option barring pharma manufacturing and marketing which require going through intensive in-house training programmes, noted Hussain Tinwala, general manager- EMPI, TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd.

There is a cross transfer of jobs where pharmacy graduates are seen to seek employment in industries totally unrelated to their qualification. This is because of lack of career opportunities, over supply of qualified pharmacists and the medical insurance sector is  seen to be a far more relevant place to work, he added.

“There is ample demand at entry level positions in medical insurance companies where for billing and coding, pharmacists are preferred. Further, pharmacists are seen to play a critical and central role in the  assessment of insurance claims too,” stated an official from Star Health Insurance.

According to Tinwala, medical insurance companies will need to evaluate their business model to position their strategy to increase job openings for pharmacy graduates and retain them on a long term basis with attractive remuneration packages and perks. Being a new job avenue, some pharmacy graduates could look at the medical insurance sector as a stop gap arrangements before they pursue  higher studies or go abroad even seek suitable position in a pharma industry.

Insurance sector per se employs workforce from varied educational backgrounds. The medical or health insurance sector continues to experience an explosion of growth. Therefore, to attract a pharmacy graduate, it should offer both work flexibility and revenue returns. The trend in Indian labour landscape is the exponential growth in the  working population and their migrations to cities. This compels the workforce to look for security for their families in terms of accessing better healthcare with the benefit of medical insurance. Usage of smart cards have made healthcare industry and medical insurance sector more robust bringing in the convenience of payments, streamlined processes and providing efficiencies in cashless hospitalizations, said Tinwala.

Other promising career prospects for qualified pharmacists are at  CROs and healthcare IT. In the former, pharmacists are found much-wanted for their knowledge in drug compositions and seen as the best to monitor human studies. In the latter, companies like Wipro, Infosys Accenture, Cognizant to name a few have dynamic life science and supply chain informatics looking for pharmacists to plan and implement systems, said Prof. Mohan.