Chennai hosts 64th Indian Pharma Congress after a decade

Chennai:

More than 7,000 delegates are expected to take part in the 64^th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress here that will be inaugurated by former President of India A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Pharmacy Council of India president Dr B Suresh said that the event is being held after more than a decade in the city and will feature prominent scientific personalities and intellectuals from the pharmaceuticals industry, research and development, regulatory departments, quality control and quality assurance, hospital clinical and community pharmacy, academic marketing, policy makers from government departments among others.

Hosted by the Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India (APTI), the two-day main event starts from Friday and organizers assure that it will nurture the next generation of pharmacists.

Dr Suresh said taking forward the Pharma Vision 2020 of Abdul Kalam, the theme of the conference would be  Pharmacy Education: Innovation, Strategies and Globalisation and more than 120 scietific speakers from various countries will be delivering lectures.

He said the state is slowly becoming a pharmaceutical hub and the conference will help in this regard. He said the state has 20 US safety approved facilities and this could boost the drugs export from India. He said 50 foreign buyers are also expected to attend the conference and the state drug manufacturers have a chance to have one to one meeting with the drug manufacturers.

Chairman of the local organizing committee of IPC S V Veeramani said that the conference will give a boost to the Indian pharma industry ranked third in the world. He said every third tablet in the world is produced from India.

Dr Suresh said that pharmacy educators in the country continue to face a number of pressing issues that threaten the quality of pharmacy education at a time when globalisation of pharma education is taking place. While the pharmacists have unprecedented opportunities in the era of gloablisation and expanding roles and responsibilities, pharmacy education too needs to respond to these challenges from a global perspective.

He said the conference intends to deliberate on the issues and recommend strategies in a globalised environment. Innovation in curriculum, best practices in teaching and learning methodologies, sharing of educational and pharmacy practice experiences from different parts of the country and globe if possible and quality assurance in pharmacy education could serve to overcome the challenges and enhance quality of pharma education and pharmacist-provided patient care, he said.

Box Factfile:

-- Indian pharma industry is ranked third in the world.

-- Every third tablet produced in the world is from India

-- Indian Pharmaceutical industry is worth more than one lakh crore