One of the industrial pharmacy sessions held on September 14 focused on new challenges for industrial pharmacists. Chaired by Mr John Jolley, the session featured two speakers: Professor Bill Dawson (Bionet Ltd), who explained how new opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry meant that pharmacy graduates were better equipped than ever for working in the industry, and Dr David Selby (international consultant), who discussed the way information technology was creating new roles and changing existing roles in industry
Pharmacists were ideally suited for work in the pharmaceutical industry because of their multidisciplinary training, Professor Bill Dawson (Bionet Ltd) said. The industry's structure and practices had changed dramatically over the past five years and it now needed new types of staff who were flexible, lateral thinking and aware of the overall process of medicine discovery and development. He explained that detailed analyses of decision making and pressures on development time required companies to focus on multidisciplinary teams empowered to define and complete tasks effectively. Also the industry frequently used external resources with audit processes to ensure compliance with corporate needs. All of these new behaviours required new types of staff, Professor Dawson said, and pharmacists were ideally positioned to take advantage of this need by virtue of their broad ranging training, which linked the relevant scientific disciplines with an awareness of the end product and patient needs. |
Bill Dawson: pharmacists' beneficial skills |
An informal survey within the industry within the past few years had shown that, after five years, up to 80 per cent of all graduates were not in the job they had been appointed to, Professor Dawson went on. Instead they had developed and moved to other positions within the same company as their own interests and company needs changed. Although some of these moves were "in line" promotions as experience increased, many were into entirely new roles. The project management role, in particular, was now more prominent, notably in the development area, where scale up, safety studies and design of clinical trial programmes ran in parallel with formulation studies, stability, packaging and preparation of the registration dossier. Most companies now seemed to assign an individual or group to ensure that this network of events proceeded smoothly and on time, and that the management system was alerted to problems as soon as possible. Given the £400m development costs of a single new medicine, it was understandable that the time lines for progression were followed as closely as possible and accelerated at every opportunity. Growth for companies depended on introduction of new products — merger and acquisition activity could achieve economies of scale, but effective growth derived from innovation. Manufacturing, technical departments, quality control and quality assurance departments were all adjusting to the new imperatives within the industry, and interdisciplinarity was just as relevant and important here as within other areas of the development chain.
Professor Dawson said that the multidisciplinary skills of pharmacists were particularly beneficial at the interface between academia and start up companies, and also where small and large companies interacted. Technology transfer and business development functions were increasingly team efforts, and pharmacists' training gave them an ideal base for participating effectively. Similarly, interaction with patent and legal teams needed a sound science base and the ability to translate it into broad concepts for other disciplines, and these skills were also usually part of a modern pharmacy degree.
Need for multiskilled staff
However, Professor Dawson warned, the industry recognised the need for multiskilled staff, and usually not only had internal training programmes in place but also actively sought new individuals to strengthen its future.
There were many training courses being run to help other primary disciplines acquire the broad skills discussed, and pharmacists should not assume that they would be hired "by right". Nevertheless, pharmacists did have the great advantage of having followed relevant multidisciplinary activities throughout the whole of their four-year course and their training year. Pharmacists were ideally placed to help the pharmaceutical industry develop into the next century, Professor Dawson concluded.
Information technology was now at the heart of business, Dr David Selby (international consultant) said. Whatever the contingency plans, the pharmaceutical industry was now unable to work without it. Moreover, information technology was "driving the new roles" in the industry that Professor Dawson had talked about earlier, because it was easy communications that had allowed the development of these new roles.
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David Selby: IT at the heart of business |
On sales and marketing, figures from the United States indicated that "e-business" in general had created 1.2 million jobs in 1998 and this was doubling every nine months. In the US pharmaceutical industry, the "e-commerce" revolution was inverting the way of doing business, because companies could advertise direct to consumers without going through intermediates, and obtain useful marketing information. This US experience was stimulating thinking in Europe, Dr Selby said. Another impact of e-business in Europe was the price transparency resulting from the single currency, which would lead to the erosion of price differentials.
Dr Selby said that the main forces driving e-business in pharmaceuticals included increased competition, price transparency, falling prices, more customer information and the reach for new customers. These forces were not as strong in Europe as in the US, but the potential was there, and cheaper telephone calls would lead to more opportunities for sales and marketing.
Possible future sales functions resulting from advances in IT included on-line education of patients, on-line patient monitoring, on-line prescribing, on-line ordering and delivery direct to the patient. Dr Selby was sure these areas would eventually evolve. It was just a question of finding a way of working with the regulations.
Simultaneous streams
However, the sales functions that were likely to develop soon were on-line sales order tracking and on-line selling. It was possible for customers to place, delete and query their orders on-line, so why should they not be able to track them on-line?
And it should be possible for manufacturers to carry on separate streams of on-line business simultaneously - selling their products to different groups of customers, such as other businesses, wholesalers and patients, by using different on-line product catalogues.