Focus on next generation of medicine

Hyderabad: "The time has changed. We need to keep ourselves upgraded. Very soon there will be less demand for small molecules. They are going to disappear from this planet. Pharmacy students have to focus on the next-generation medicines, like biologics, biosimilars, cell and gene therapy, triple A (Advanced accelerator applications, which deal with our radio medicine) Nuclear medicine and so on. So, prepare ourselves to get into these areas and to meet new challenges", said M Subas Chandra, Associate Director, Global Drug Development, Novartis, Hyderabad.

He was the chief guest and key-note speaker in the inaugural of a one-day national conference on 'Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences' (CPPS-2022) at GITAM School of Pharmacy, Hyderabad on Friday, with a theme of Data Science, Artificial intelligence, Flexible Production.

'Human life is based on four pillars; they are health, career, (personal) finance and relationship', said Subas. Career mentoring is the need of the hour, we need mentors, who do hand-holding, lighthouse, and they can better understand than your parents, he explained.

Lack of soft skills many students are rejected by the industry, they need to develop better communication, interpersonal skills, collaboration, flexibility, honesty and integrity, he exhorted. 'If you want to be successful, maintain values and behavior', he made it clear. He also stressed that talent has no meaning without practicing and being confident. He explained the three 'C's are creating the student more confusion; they are Comparison, Competition and Confusion.

He advised the students that they have to question always. He sincerely advised three things to remember- edit your belief system, upgrade your knowledge and expand your identification. Subas appealed that, try to discover the hidden potential and explore it.

Dr B Krisha Murthy, Associate Vice-President, NATCO Pharma, Hyderabad advised that the technological advances are going very rapidly and how we can use them in the pharmacy industry. Harish G Chinnari, Director, Slayback Pharma, Hyderabad opined that this kind of conference will help to enhance knowledge and to know new things. They have released the conference proceedings.