Indian pharma witnesses shift in skill demand driven by tech advances: Experts

Bengaluru, October 19, 2021:

Experts are of the view that Indian pharma is now seeing a shift in skills demand driven by tech advances across R&D, manufacture and marketing. Digital tools such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are increasingly being used to design, develop and test new products. Digital tools are also used for remote auditing, supply chain and people management.

Artificial intelligence (AI), AR-VR, blockchain, 3D printers, IoT (internet of things), etc are changing the way pharmaceutical companies operate today. Needless to say, with the changing ways and increasing use of technology, the skills required to manage the technology functions are changing thereby increasing the demand of skilled personnel by over 43%.

According to Sunil Attavar, past president, Karnataka Drugs & Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (KDPMA), the pandemic has pushed the industry to digitisation across the spectrum of manufacturing, marketing, training or even product development where we need to step up to remain relevant. There is a definite need to recruit talent that can adapt to these requirements. Higher up the chain, we will need talent in machine learning, AI among other new technologies as we see a rapid adoption across sectors and pharma can't be far behind.  

Umanandan Misra, dean, Pharma Training Institute said that tech adoption has enabled companies to accelerate access to doctors by pharma marketing teams and seamless patient connectivity with physicians. Advanced analytics delivers efficiency in research to optimise selection of potential drug candidates, monitor clinical research services. Even manufacturing plants are adopting Industry 4.0 enabling smart factory operations which are transformative and call for extensive domain expertise.

Pharmaceutical companies are seeking candidates with technical competencies to manage networks, cloud security, AWS, GCP, azure, data science, data migration, robotic process automation, block chain, Dev Ops, big data , AR-VR. With business processes being automated, Software as a service (SAAS), Platform as a service (PAAS) and Infrastructure as a service (IAAS) are in vogue, stated Neeti Sharma, co-founder and President, TeamLease Edtech.

There are various areas within the pharmaceutical industry where technology helps to eliminate human error and maintain higher degrees of consistency and efficiency. Some of these are understanding medicine mechanism inside a human body, interaction with cells clinical research, educating patients with treatment protocol, manufacturing equipment to be precise and accurate. Few of the other areas that depend massively on technology to improve process & efficiency are logistics, supply chain, marketing and training. Digitization is also important for all front end & back end processes such as vigilance and compliance, she added.

“We also see technology experts making efforts to leverage data to create newer and better digital solutions for pharma industry. Many companies are leveraging their expertise in software, data and AI to optimise opportunities in research, discovery, clinical development and patient monitoring,” she noted.

Technical skills such as maths, statistics, analytics and modeling, machine learning , programming, data visualization , problem solving skills, proficiency in programming languages such as C, C++, Python, Java, C#, strong UI/UX , Autodesk are needed for job seekers who intend to work in pharmaceuticals or IT companies developing technology for the life sciences sector, said Sharma. PharmaBiz