The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7485 p49-50
19 January 2008

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• Industrial pharmacists (4)
• Community pharmacy
• Responsible pharmacist (2)
• Package design
• The profession (2)
• The Society (3)
• Registration (2)
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Letters to the Editor

Industrial pharmacists

Industrial pharmacists are an endangered species

From Mr A. C. Cartwright, FRPharmS

I strongly support John Turner’s plea (PJ, 5/12 January 2008, p16) for the new professional body which will succeed the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to be attractive to and promote the interests of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists in industry.

The News feature in the PJ of 17 November 2007 (p557), “Why the UK must continue to nurture skills required for drug development”, drew attention to the need to improve the “skills pipeline” of the UK pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry.

However from the 2005 Society census only a handful of new entrants who completed the census appeared to be working in the industry. The surveys of industrial pharmacists in employment confirm this view and present a picture of crisis with an increasingly older group of pharmacists, with few now entering the industry.

Since the 1970s there seems to have been a decline in the proportion of industrial pharmacists in the UK compared with other professionals in industry, and they now comprise only a small minority of those employed in quality assurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical research and development, medical information and regulatory affairs.

This is in marked contrast to the situation in other European countries. As part of my work until recently, I have organised training courses for technical and regulatory affairs staff in pharmaceutical companies in many European countries.

I am always struck by the high proportion of pharmacists (and certainly in senior roles) compared with the UK. And in other EU countries their role is often legally recognised — as in France with the pharmaciens responsables.

The increasing numbers of pharmacy students and the decreasing numbers of preregistration places is already putting a strain on the system and the Society’s Council will, in the near future, need to reconsider the arrangements.

This will be an opportunity to create a more flexible system which should encourage more pharmacists to do their preregistration training in industry. It seems doubtful with the increased emphasis on clinical aspects within the four-year MSc degree that a six-month period in the preregistration year in community or hospital pharmacy is any longer necessary.

Jeremy Holmes in the January issue of Your Society requested members to send him their top priorities for 2008. I propose that as one of his tasks he should contact the pharmaceutical membership bodies in other EU countries to investigate the position with their industrial pharmacy members and then prepare a report for the Council to consider.

As with any endangered species we need an urgent programme to protect us from extinction.

Tony Cartwright
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

We need strong representation

From Dr A. S. Hersom, FRPharmS

John Turner’s letter (PJ, 5/12 January 2008, p16) has prompted me to ask who, in future, can call himself or herself a pharmacist.

The proposed General Pharmaceutical Council will be the registration body for community and hospital pharmacists; there will be a separate organisation that will provide professional representation and leadership. However, many pharmacists do not work in community or hospital and their position seems less clear.

There are thousands of pharmacists employed in industry, working for contract research organisations or as consultants. Some even work for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Activities include, for example, commercial and investigational medicinal product (IMP) manufacture and release, quality management, formulation, clinical research, pharmacovigilance, medical information and regulatory affairs.

Currently “pharmacist” is a restricted title, which means the holder has completed a suitable course, complied with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s preregistration requirements and paid a fee.

What will be the situation in future: will a pharmacist just have to be registered with the GPhC, be a paid up member of the new pharmacy professional representational body or both? This has serious implications for us all.

It is not obvious how industrial pharmacists would fit into the proposed GPhC or how such a disparate range of roles could be revalidated. As industrial pharmacists work more closely with the MHRA than the Department of Health, it could be argued that the MHRA should be involved in discussions during the formation of the proposed GPhC.

The Society has never had any real interest in this sector of the profession apart from involvement with the registration of Qualified Persons (with the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Biology). Industrial pharmacists are effectively ignored by the Society.

Qualified QPs and IMP QPs do not even need to be currently registered with the Society. With a history of minimal support from Lambeth in promoting, maintaining and developing best practices in industrial pharmacy, is there any point in being members of the new professional representation and leadership body?

I am aware of one pharmacist QP who has registered with the RSC becoming an associate member of that professional body. He felt that he needed some professional representation and it is considerably cheaper than the current Society fee.

If there is not a lead now from the Industrial Pharmacists Group I cannot see the Society representing industrial pharmacists after 2010. The field is open to competition for the professional body.

To continue to exist as the professional body, which will not be mandatory to join, the Society needs to make itself attractive for industrial pharmacists members as well as everyone else. That includes providing more relevant content in The Pharmaceutical Journal.

I believe that there needs to be a wide-ranging debate by people working in the industrial sector and for the IPG committee to make strong representation about the future of industrial pharmacists, not just to the Clarke Inquiry but to the MHRA.

For example, the Council seems to be considering allowing pharmaceutical scientists to join or register. I have not met any pharmacist who thinks this is appropriate or desirable.

A. S. Hersom
Roos, East Yorkshire

So few pharmacists

From Mr M. C. Harvey, MRPharmS

Stephen Goundrey-Smith (PJ, 22/29 December 2007, p710) wrote that “the medicines management process is about the development, formulation, supply and use of medicines with counselling and provision of information about medicine-related issues”.

And in the December 2007 Industrial Pharmacist (pS3, PDF 250K) Steve Robertson, of the Industrial Pharmacists Group, tried to dispel the myths that seem to prevent pharmacists joining the industry.

Does the Royal Pharmaceutical Society think it odd that less than 4 per cent of pharmacists contribute to the development and formulation of medicines? After all, without this step, I question whether the other 96 per cent would be gainfully employed.

Mike Harvey
Chichester, West Sussex

Are industrial pharmacists heading for extinction?

From Dr M. E. Brown, MRPharmS

I fear that John Turner (PJ, 5/12 January 2008, p16) may well be correct: maybe it is too late to prevent the extinction of industrial pharmacists. Moreover, within community pharmacies, even the compounding of something as simple as methadone mixture has become a rarity.

Similarly, within hospital pharmacies, pharmacists interested in the manufacture of the medicines still exist but the vast majority of pharmacists are clinically oriented.

I also agree with Mr Turner that, perhaps, one way of helping to maintain a population of industrial pharmacists would be for the new professional body — that was once our Royal Pharmaceutical Society — to accept, in some capacity, pharmaceutical quality assurance professionals, non-clinical scientists and others interested in the manufacture of medicines and investigational medicinal products.

Accepting those not registered as pharmacists with the General Pharmaceutical Council may be contentious. However, if accepted, those non-pharmacists and the more clinically oriented pharmacists could learn from and support each other.

My concern is that, otherwise, the knowledge of the manufacture of medicines within the profession of pharmacy may fade away. I made that point in 2003 (PJ, 29 March 2003, p434).

May I, as a sociologist, illustrate this situation with an analogy? Today, some Australian aboriginal tribes are reluctant to “go walkabout” in their desert. Their reason is that they have not, as caretakers, looked after their land well enough and the spirits — which are real to the tribe — have become stronger. Some of those spirits may kill travellers.

My fear is that industrial knowledge among pharmacists is becoming so rare that pharmacists may lose their confidence to follow a career in the pharmaceutical industry, let alone become Qualified Persons.

Sharing the same professional body with those non-clinical, non-pharmacist medicine makers may fortify pharmacists sufficiently to venture back into making medicines. Those plucky pioneers may discover afresh that creating the actual medicines is interesting, fulfilling — and profitable.

Today, the hourly fee rate for an industrial Qualified Person is about three times higher than that for a locum community pharmacist.

Malcolm E. Brown
Beccles, Suffolk

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