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Making sense of medicines

Puja S. Navin

How about a career which offers you scope to banish diseases from earth's face!

Transforming chemical powder into a medicinal product can be one of the most interesting, exciting and satisfying experiences. Imagine working on anti-diabetic drugs, anti- cancer and anti-depression drugs that are safer, cause less side-effects and rein in diseases.

This is exactly what a career in pharmaceutical formulation and research offers. It is a chance to improve health and well being through new and groundbreaking medicines and therapies.

A career in pharmaceutical chemistry combines a broad range of scientific disciplines that are critical to the discovery and development of new drugs and therapies. These can be classify into the following main categories.

The challenges before a pharmaceutical chemist are tremendous says Prasuna Lamba, Head of Department of Chemistry at Koti Women's College, "In any molecule there are only a few functional groups responsible for biological activity. Hence the pharmaceutical chemist must isolate those molecules and then synthesize them."

Drug Delivery is concerned with the design of dosage forms -- such as tablets, injections, powders, syrups or emulsions -- that will deliver the drug to the site of action in a patient. This is exactly what companies like Cipla, Ranbaxy, GlaxoSmithkline do. The purpose is to ensure that the drug arrives in the right concentration and at the right time.

Drug Action examines how the drug works in a living system. The action of the drug can be studied at the molecular level, in a cell, an organ, and in animals.

Clinical Sciences are concerned with the use of drugs in the treatment of diseases. Properties of new drugs -- such as efficacy, adverse effects, drug-to-drug interaction -- are determined in clinical trials in humans.

Career Options

Production and Manufacturing: A student can join the production team to work in the production of bulk drugs, formulations and dosages.

Research and Development: This is the heart of the industry and decides its growth.

One can start in any of the pharma companies as a research associate working on new drug discovery research, development of the industrial processes for commercial manufacture of the drugs and clinical trials.

Koti Women's College offers M.Sc in Pharmaceutical Chemistry. "This course trains students both in research and development as well as in analytics," says Professor Lamba. Besides the last semester is devoted to projects where students work in companies such as Dr. Reddy's Labs, Aurobindo Pharma, Matrix Laboratories, National Research Laboratories such as Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) on analysis and synthesis of drugs and molecular modelling.

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