Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has instituted a Professional Development Fund where it has allocated Rs.2 crore. The funding is to be utilized for the training of pharmacy faculty and students in colleges or graduated candidates to hone their skills.

The funding is separate allocation from the Council’s financial resources which was created last year where 20 out of the 1,100 pharmacy colleges came forward to apply for the Professional Development Fund, Dr B Suresh, president, PCI and vice chancellor, JSS University, Mysore told Pharmabiz in an interaction.

Each candidate can receive Rs.25,000 maximum for training programmes. The pharmacy colleges could also use this amount to start short-term skill based training courses within their institute. It would make candidates more competent, he added.

“This is a cumulative fund and we would look to increase the grant annually. The key objective is to ensure that more number of students are able to maximize the benefit of this financial support to upgrade skills,” he said.

There is currently no dearth for pharmacy professionals in the country. In fact, India accounts for 1.2 million pharmacists. There are 10 pharmacists per 10,000 populations. Further, there is one pharmacist available per physician. However, 75 per cent of the pharmacists are seen to serve in the retail sector covering community, hospital and dispensaries. Only 15-20 per cent are employed in the industry. Around five to seven per cent opt for higher studies and migrate to the developed countries. Therefore, the need of the hour is to ensure competent pharmacists are easily accessible for both healthcare and industry, said Dr Suresh.

Although there are pharmacists in hospitals, they are yet to play an advisory role to patients. On the industry front, there is a gap in skills to handle GATT, IPR, TRIPs, R&D, New Drug Applications, exports and high potency drug transit processes.

In 2013-14, the country saw 43,168 D Pharm candidates pass out of 726 colleges and B Pharm accounted for 62,713 graduate from 1026 colleges.

“There are unprecedented opportunities for pharmacists globally and their roles are expanding too. We have seen a pharmacist transcend from a compounder to a drug dispenser to a medication information provider and now entering into patient care. The Pharm D is seen a paradigm shift increasing employment opportunities within the hospitals. The candidates are seen to be a dependable source of unbiased drug information for physicians who earlier depended on industry medical representatives and conference visits for such data,” he said.

Therefore, pharmacists are seen to play an increasing supportive role in the healthcare space. However, there are a couple of challenges. The government has not yet projected a pharmacist role in the healthcare and pharma policies. There is a difference in roles for pharmacists for national needs and global assignments. This is where PCI instituted the Professional Development Fund to ensure that nature of pharmacy practice is transformed with frequent time-tested training modules, said Dr Suresh.