Today the pharmaceutical industry is facing a compensation issue in both skill and knowledge. What do you have to say on this?
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Dr Mahesh D Burande
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The pharmaceutical industry in India is growing at 15 per cent to 17 per cent every year by volume, but due to regulations, Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) and promotion of generics, the profit margins are reducing. The starting package in pharma industry is always less as compared to the IT industry and expectations of B Pharm and M Pharm students are always high.
During the last 30 years, we have seen the industry first test the person for his performance and then increase his package depending on the quality output from the employee. I believe once the person starts performing then the sky is not the limit in pharma industry, as far as the package is concerned. Four active ingredients for success formula is application of knowledge, skill, hard work and most important positive attitude and passion towards the job and pharmacy profession. Compensation is always based on performance to give results, so a person who is joining the pharma industry should have patience for the first two years and start performing right from the first day.
Over the years, pharmacy graduates and the number of colleges have increased predominantly, but the job opportunity is much lesser. Why is it so?
We have more than 1,000 pharmacy colleges in India and more than 70,000 students pass out every year. Many of them, almost 20 per cent of the students are proceeding for post graduation which means 50,000 students are looking for jobs in the pharmacy profession and may be 15,000 post graduates are also looking for jobs in pharmacy profession. Presently, the size of the pharma industry is more than 20,000 in number which is providing almost 15 types of different job opportunities to the pharmacy students. Today 30 per cent jobs are available in pharma sales and marketing segment at any time in the growing pharma industry while jobs in production, quality control and quality assurance may be 20 per cent at different locations with less packages.
The healthcare industry is also offering jobs in hospitals, clinical research, pharmacovigilance, regulatory, drug store, data management in IT companies and even in insurance companies. Post graduates are required in R&D and teaching while MBAs in pharma marketing. You may not get a job of your choice, company of your choice, place of your choice or package of your expectations but you will get a job any time anywhere in the pharma industry and with your experience and performance, you will rise in this profession where sky is no limit.
Do you think pharmacy graduates in India are well trained and can compete with their counterparts in the developed countries?
In the developed countries, PharmD students are well trained for healthcare practices and working in hospital and pharmacy (drug stores) is their profession which is most respected and rewarded. We are working in this area and Pharmacy Council of India, by starting PharmD programme, will contribute in this regard and it will take some time to compete with skills of our counterparts in developed countries. Our B Pharm students are well acquainted with manufacturing of drugs and formulations but skills which are required as per the needs of the pharma industry are still lacking. With their experience they develop the skill but that is why their initial package is not as high as per their expectations. There is a need to develop pharmacy curriculum with importance to develop technical skills and soft skills while competing graduation which the industry is looking after.
