Dr. B. Suresh, M.Pharm., Ph.D., D.Sc., Vice Chancellor, JSS University, Mysore
President, Pharmacy Council of India
Chairman, Scientific Body, Indian Pharmacopoeial Commission

Pharmacy Education and Practice in India

Pharmacy education in India has undergone a paradigm shift in the last two decades. Prior to country’s independence in 1947, formal pharmacy education, a three-year bachelor of pharmacy was offered only by three institutions (first in Banaras Hindu University in 1937) and there were no legal restrictions on the practice of pharmacy. It was only after independence the concept of pharmacy education and practice was realized. The Pharmacy Act was enacted in 1948, to set standards and regulate the pharmacy education, profession and practice in India.

Provisions of the Pharmacy Act are implemented through the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), a statutory body established in 1949. The vision and mission of the PCI is to continuously evolve pharmacy course curriculum towards meeting present and future societal needs so as to prepare a pharmacist workforce with required competencies. Today, there are 1800 institutions in India, to meet the varying needs of the profession at different levels, offer several pharmacy programs. Until little more than a decade the pharmacy graduates were involved mostly in manufacturing of medicines. Traditional dispensing of medicines and patient care services were supported though pharmacists who had a two year diploma in pharmacy qualification.

The Strong Pharmaceutical Sciences based pharmacy education supported the growing needs of the Pharmaceutical Industry. This resulted in tremendous growth and innovation in Pharma Industry leading to India emerging as a global Pharma destination, however it failed to gain societal recognition for the pharmacy profession.

The Renaissance

The role of the Pharmacist in health care delivery or patient care was little known and was not visible.The introduction of practice-based and patient-focused postgraduate course (Master of Pharmacy in Pharmacy Practice) in 1995, introduced the country to the concept of Pharmacy Practice. This saw the transition of pharmacy profession from product to patient focused practice. It was only after 2008 India made rapid progression in the practice-based pharmacy education, after the introduction a practice-based six years ‘Doctor of Pharmacy – Pharm.D’ degree program by the PCI.
The introduction of Pharm.D course brought about a Renaissance in Pharmacy Education in India. This multi-faceted course redefined the role of pharmacists in the Indian healthcare system.  A paradigm shift resulting in the increased number of students-pharmacists working in the wards of hundreds of hospitals and increased pharmacists’ capabilities in providing patient care services brought about the much needed visibility to the Pharmacy profession.

The availability of clinically trained pharmacists (after 6 years of PharmD study) has had a positive impact on more than 60,000 patients every day who visit more than 200 hospitals associated with a PharmD programme. More than 30,000 health care professionals including, Physcians, Dentists and Nurses have access to unbiased information on medicines. Improvement in the responsible use of medicines has impacted  beneficially to patients and hospital management. Drug information bulletins, patient counselling, ADR monitoring, health team etc have become frequently used terms in the health profession. There has been strengthening of the governments Pharmacovigilance programme and there is now a data-base of adverse drug events being reported. The government is conscious of the role of clinical pharmacists and has engaged them in the pharmacovigilance initiatives. The CRO’s appreciate the expanding and increasing role of the clinical pharmacists in various phases of clinical trials.

Pharmaceutical sciences have continued to evolve in the last
two decades from the development of Novel drug delivery systems to the pharmacogenomics based personalised medicine. However the Pharmacy education was responding at a much slower
pace to meet the needs and challenges in the advances in pharmaceutical sciences.This mismatch between the education and need has resulted in the decreased expectations from pharmacists to contribute to advances of Pharmaceutical sciences.

Biotechnologists, chemists, materials science experts and chemical engineers have started playing leadership role in driving the drug discovery and development process. To address these issues the Pharmacy Council of India implemented the
B.Pharm Regulations 2014 and the M.Pharm Regulations 2014 along with a national syllabus and curriculum to bring about the change anticipated by all stakeholders.

The B. Pharm regulations address the mismatch between the education and industry expectations effectively by providing-

1. Curriculum that equips students to meet industry expectations
2. Choice based credit system to drive innovation in education.
3. Experiential opportunities through hands on training with the Pharmaceutical industry
4. Emphasises Industry academia cooperation
5. Quality assurance and ICT enabled pedagogy.
6. Life long learning.

For providing a thrust towards drug discovery and innovation in the country the M. Pharm Regulations focuses on

1. Post graduate training with a focus on emerging areas
2. Support to research that is industry driven and application based.
3. Teacher student ratio is optimally maintained to assure quality
4. Promoting interdisciplinary research and teaching and learning.
5. Providing for attracting distinguished faculty from industry and research organisations
6. Supporting alignment of research with business growth.

The introduction of these new regulations has ensured compliance to erstwhile guidelines and policies that have now become mandatory by law. This will help in ensuring and uplifting the standards of Pharmacy education and profession.

Challenges

1. Indian pharmacy qualifications are designed to meet the varying needs of the country as well as other regions. Hence some of the qualifications may be different from those that are globally and may not meet the needs of such countries and regions.
2. There is a shortage of pharmacy faculty, in the areas of Pharmacy practice to provide Pharm.D students with the advanced experiential training. One of the strategies with which this can be overcome is by collaboration with international universities and their faculty members as visiting professors can help in exchange of resources that can support the development of the Pharm.D program in the right direction.
3. Community and hospital pharmacists predominantly hold a diploma in pharmacy qualification and are now seen to be under qualified. The B.Pharm ( Practice ) bridge course will provide an opportunity to pharmacists holding diploma qualification to upgrade their qualification to Bachelor of Pharmacy (Practice).
4. Similarly, the first cohort of Pharm.D. graduates (2014) are now employed in hospitals and this is expected to address the requirements of clinical pharmacy practice.

Future directions

The future of the pharmacy profession lies on developing well-qualified, knowledgeable, skilled and competent human resources, providing high quality pharmaceutical care services in healthcare system and fulfilling the other professional obligation/responsibilities based on the societal need.