The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7298 p588
8 May 2004

Society summary

Industrial Pharmacists Group: The day the branch came to visit

Inviting the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's local branches to visit a pharmaceutical company can increase pharmacists' understanding of the work of the industry and the role of their industrial pharmacist colleagues. Janet Halliday writes

Many pharmacists have no real experience or even understanding of the challenges facing the industrial pharmacist. This is the result of ever narrowing degree courses, few of which have any significant industrial orientation. Working in the pharmaceutical industry can be an immensely challenging, exciting and rewarding career choice for a pharmacist and even a limited exposure to the industrial pharmacist’s world can reveal the immense challenges of taking a new drug from the laboratory to the pharmacy shelf.

I am one of four pharmacists working for Controlled Therapeutics (Scotland) Ltd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US company Cytokine PharmaSciences Inc (CPSI). The Scottish company was established in East Kilbride, 12 miles from Glasgow, in 1986. The 57 staff working in its 9,500m² premises include six PhDs and two “qualified persons”.

Two of the company’s pharmacists, Steve Robertson and John Jess, are members of the Lanarkshire branch of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. They recently hosted a meeting of the branch, during which 25 local pharmacists toured the company’s facility. The presentation that followed described the activities at CT, comparing them to those of larger companies that are household names.

The visitors learnt that, since its establishment, the company has been working on the development and commercialisation of a novel polymer drug delivery system. In 2003 it was awarded a £493,000 Spur Plus grant to develop biodegradable hydrogel polymers. In the same year it also won a Queen’s Award for Innovation. In March 2004 it was awarded the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce award for “Best Manufacturing Company of 2004”.

The company launched its first product in the UK in 1989 and in the US in 1995. Since then, its research and development have been supported by funds generated from the sales of Propess and Cervidil vaginal inserts — dinoprostone-containing products that are used to ripen the cervix in women with a medical requirement for induction of labour.

Controlled Therapeutics manufactures the inserts and distributes them to over 40 countries. The company has been profitable for many years and more than two million babies have been safely with the assistance of its lead product.

The visitors also learnt that CPSI is currently developing a second-generation cervical ripening product as well as a buccal delivery system for xerostomia and a new treatment for bacterial vaginosis.

The visit resulted in a positive response from the branch secretary. Thanking the company on behalf of the branch, he wrote: “As a branch we were delighted to receive the opportunity to have an involved tour of Controlled Therapeutics and we were certainly welcomed on the night.”

Commenting on the processes and procedures that take place at Controlled Therapeutics, he said that many were a surprise to him and, he suspected, to most of the other visitors.

He went on: “It was clear throughout our tour that techniques of quality assurance were clearly in evidence. This was not a surprise, as ‘an outsider looking in’ would have expected quality assurance techniques to be high profile in an industrial environment, where we know that you have regular internal and external audits from august bodies such as medicines inspectors.

“It was also obvious that as a company, you put great stock on continuing professional development and have systems for this in place for your staff.”

He added that it had been interesting to learn about the varied nature of the marketing of new medicines in different countries and to hear the company’s views on the current systems for managing the introduction of new medicines into the UK market — and the Scottish market in particular. The visitors had also found it interesting to learn about new developments in the company pipeline.

One difference noted between the culture of industrial pharmacy and practice within the NHS was that in the industry one naturally had to be careful about how much one could say about any new ideas because of commercial sensitivity. Within the NHS, pharmacists tended to be comfortable about sharing ideas among their peers, even when those ideas are still at an embryonic stage. “Our hope would of course be that everyone could benefit and contribute to these ideas as they get developed into practice, but I do understand that in the competitive world of industrial pharmacy, then you have to be very careful about how much you can share your ideas early on.”

The branch secretary concluded: “Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable visit, and while I would not anticipate it would be something the branch would do every year or perhaps even every two years, I suspect that a visit to an industrial site every five years to keep an update on developments would be a very popular meeting.”

From this report and from the feedback on the evening itself, the company felt that it too had benefited from the experience. I suggest that all industrial pharmacists should invite their local branches to visit. Branches are always keen to include a variety of topics in their programme, and, from my own experience, I know that industrial pharmacists are poor attenders at branch meetings. Some of the issues facing pharmacists working in industry in the supply of clinical trials materials to meet the new EU directives are also being faced by pharmacist colleagues in the hospital sector, and it would be useful to exchange experiences. Industrial pharmacists should get out there and encourage fellow pharmacists to appreciate their important role in the profession of pharmacy.