The Necessity of One, the Benefit of Many: Bridging the Gap between Industry and Academia_Essay by Vivek Ghate
With
a growing world scenario, comes athirst to grow among others. As the society
makes progress onto a leading democracy: institutions, industries, and residential complexes begin to appear. Adding on to
this are the initiatives taken by the Government in digitalizing the day to day
activities. Education and academic institutions have grown over decades to unimaginable heights and produce more number of highly qualified individuals.
They are then let out into the free world to hunt for a job matching their
profiles and settle as a whole. However, Industries and other job providers try
to filter out the real bunch of
candidates into countable few who can work for them and aid in their potential
growth. As the case with other fields, the pharmaceutical sector is no
exception. In fact, it is now the most sorted and broadly competitive field requiring a sufficiently skilled and
specific domain experts to take control of the global health concern. That being said, the education system is developing
along with baby-boomers and branded pharmaceutical industries appointing the
qualified where does the actual problem arise?
Though
the educational qualification is the prerequisite for getting a job in the
pharmaceutical sector, Industry doesn’t appoint
people without high caliber for well-paid posts which
is mainly because industry and
academia are both independent and different in their own ways. Academicians have an entirely
different focus on working and growth in sufficient contrast to the industry despite both being in the same field of
interest. Academicians are majorly centered on to a much static curriculum and
mindsets so as to obtain recognition while moving on to novel systems of drug
delivery with a lesser idea regarding the cost during the scale-up. Industrialists, on the other hand, have more dynamic and changing applications well
grounded into the mindsets to obtain a self-sustained, minimal cost and risk
product to make them a global player.
Speaking of pharma sector,
the main problem arises in the academic curriculum. The research is progressed in making newer and newer
delivery systems with decorations and size reduction. But, no industry wants to
look into the produced samples! This happens
because the industry is trying to manage the rapidly transforming capital
markets and economy. The processes made in an academic backdrop shows poor
translation into the clinical aspects due to scale up problems, stability
issues and clinical intolerance and
adverse effects. Academicians on the peak of the novel formulations do not work
in the well accepted conventional delivery systems like the tablets or
capsules. They forbid themselves from getting a functional product by
satisfying themselves with a large number of publications lying in the pages of
their library. In the process of pure novelty unguided by the actual scenario, end up making highly expensive and unreliable formulations
for an already existing cheap medication
in the market. Academia has lost its luster due to the award of more and more
degrees and once in a blue moon changing the curriculum.
Industry approaches the high-profile academic institutions during the time of
their need and consults a few well-known
people they are comfortable with. Once an
industry does this, others will follow which result in
the monopoly of the said academic institution to attract all the possible
funding and projects leaving the less fortunate schools
where they are. Industry displays and tries to solve their formulation, active
ingredient or any other problem internally in most of the cases. A small part
of this would also relate to the patentability and intellectual property rights
on the developed product.
The
above problems and oppositely poled academic and industry seem never ending. In a digital world we live
in, the solution is mere with a click of
a mouse button. To be precise, a left click of the mouse! Yes, the online education system has seen tremendous
growth in the last few years. Giants like the Harvard, Cambridge, and IITs to name a few have taken a step to provide paid
and free courses to enthusiastic entrepreneurs to aid them in understanding the
topic better and make the most of their time in hand. However, a very few
pharmaceutical industries have taken the lead. The bridging of the gap between
the academia and industry to a certain extent can be made only by the mode of
online education. As estimated by several leading surveys an average adult
human being spends about 4 hours in fronts
of digital devices like the computer and laptops. An exciting yet highly
precise data is that Google records
around 3.5 billion searches per day. Academicians and general public move
towards the search engines to find protocols, methods and recent innovation in their fields and to gain knowledge. Providing
online education and recognition of achieving with problem solving and grades
will allow for a better opportunity to disseminate knowledge. Industrial
sponsored teaching and courses will
attract many individuals from the academic
who will be benefited while helping the provider. Being a major player in the market, mobile phones have the capacity
to educate almost all the sectors of the society. If utilized to its fullest,
industry may not have to wait years to get their product related problems
solved by the academia.
The industry could shed some of
its knowledge in the form of online documentaries, theories, little information’s and also indicate what
methods were taken to overcome the problems and the likely-to-be interesting research. Academicians could connect with the industries, allow them to take and
give suggestions and interactivity as a plus point to make students understand
better.The industry should also provide for an efficient online course in the field of project management and
interview and other related matters to help the student to grab his dream job. The industry should partner with the academic sector and allow for the use of online
education in their curriculum. Several pharmaceutical industries are not well
developed in the home country, in which cases it could be beneficial to the
academicians interested in working in new
diseases to engage themselves in the learning of the methodologies and currently available expertise in the area. The industry should focus on the practical
applicability of the theories in the book and guide the academia as to what the
global health care sector needs.
The government in several countries have already initiated
and support the online courses and education systems. The need of the hour is
the development of a proper secure network between the academia and industry to
overcome the gaps existing between them. This progress will facilitate the
match and relevance of the academic programs with the necessity of the industry
which in turn is reflecting the need of the health care segment of the society.
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