The new office use of the Tamil Nadu Pharmaceutical sciences Welfare Trust (TNPWT) in Chennai was inaugurated on its silver jubilee celebration day by the former secretary of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Dr V K Subburaju. The new office room will be functional within one month.

After inauguration, Dr Subburaju said the Indian pharma sector now provides 2.5 lakh million jobs to people belong to industry, research, trade and pharmacy profession. The Tamil Nadu pharma industry is small in size but doing good. It needs more proactive steps from the government side for the growth.

N Sreenivasan, secretary of TNPWT, while briefing Pharmabiz about the valuable services of the Trust, said the main objective of the Trust is to help and support pharmacy education and research. For the promotion of pharmacy education, it gives scholarships to PG and Pharm D students.

“The Trust has created a corpus fund. The interest generated from the corpus is being utilized for awarding scholarships to selected Pharm. D and M. Pharm students for on-going project work.  The scholarships amount is around Rs.5,000.  The students studying in colleges of Tamil Nadu are eligible for the scholarships,” he said.

Recognizing the growing need of the latest and accurate information on drugs, the Trust formed a ‘Pharma Information Centre’ in 1999. It gives scientific information on drugs to pharma industry professionals, students of pharmacy, researchers, medical and other healthcare professionals.

Further, the Trust conducts training programmes and workshops occasionally to the professionals in the manufacturing industry, especially from those of small scale industry. For disseminating news and sharing knowledge, it has brought out a news letter also.

In the year 2011, TNPWT started a new programme for the B Pharm students studying in various colleges in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. Every year an essay competition is conducted on a topic relevant to the pharmacy profession. Cash awards and certificates are given to the 3 best essays.

In the year 2014, the Trust started the ‘Pharma Knowledge and Training Institute’ (Finishing School) for the pharmacy graduates to get exposure in pharmaceutical industry. The Institute is now under the guidance of state IPA.

According to Sreenivasan, the latest addition to the Trust activities is the University Merit Awards initiated in the year 2015. Students securing top 3 ranks in B Pharmacy from Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai are awarded cash prizes and certificates sponsored by the Trust chairman’s company, Fourrts India Labs Pvt Ltd.