Reflection- Therapeutic Industry

INTRODUCTION TO THE THERAPEUTICS INDUSTRY

The Master of Pharmaceutical Medicine program at the University of New South Wales went with many engagements on the number of activities that prepare a way for my studies in next semester two. As usual, the first day began with induction in my view as part of the university actions, informing students with processes and systems in pursuing the course while at the university. The induction processes at some stage prepare me to understand the University of New South Wales systems and procedures relevant to the Master of Pharmaceutical Medicine. It helps me settle down quickly in the new environment, which gives a sense of belonging and enthusiasm.

In the first week, as part of an assessment task or activities for the rest of the semester. We expected to complete the class introduction. It was fascinated to learn that the degree course has attracted many fellow students from various diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and professional backgrounds. My dedication was to study the chosen course relevant and essential, given my education backgrounds in Public Health and Clinical Epidemiology. The first concluded with downloading and reviewing of course outline and timetable.  It was not hard to explore the new online learning environment from the University of New South Wales, including blackboard, update calendar and review booklet to the start course ensuring to familiarise myself with the course assessment undertakings. The first week was extraordinary in many aspects, not only preparation and familiarity with the course but also an introduction to week two, especially when we began our first session on the Milestones in pharmaceutical product development. Part of the importance of week two was contacting and meeting my group members, made some introduction and began to discuss tasks at hand. We fronted with challenges of being new to each other at different locations at a time when the Coronavirus was dominating headlines in Wuhan, China and at the global crossing points. In my first contact through email demonstrate the reality that some of the team members got stranded in China, but willing to continue with the course working while overseas. One would not wonder why a student (s) would take courage to study while overseas, despite that critical time. Perhaps, this might be interpreted in different ways, but in my assumption, it was a commitment that they would accomplish the course of their desire. Taking the lead was part of the teamwork, networking, cooperation, and collaboration, which is part of course attributes, learning professional ethics and cooperation.  Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances emerged, one of our team members in the group dropped out of the semester, affected the allocation of our tasks for assessment. We once again presented with challenges which we must mitigate. Nonetheless, the part of the task assigned to the student was taken over by us in the group, although, it had added to the existing loads.

We proceeded to week three with the burden of emerging the coronavirus that has almost affect every university and pharma industries in Australia, especially mode of face to face delivery learning. Fortuitously, we were lucky that our course designed online interaction that overcomes the new challenges of 21^st Century learning, including impediment of Coronavirus (COVID-19).  At the state of COVID-19 confusion, not only we were at the verge of completing Draft Wiki outline, part of an assessment task 1 due on 11th March 2020. But also completing discussion forum entries and ELISE tutorial. My contribution was to select the topic of our assessment and introduce it to our team members. At first, not all the members of the team responded. Differently, we had a different approach to a diverse learning environment and the people. But, at a later stage, the group agreed to the topic selected, storm the work with enthusiasm and desire to complete the first part of the assessment task in that point in time.

For example, COVID-19 was challenging aspect or barrier to the learning and major pharma companies at a time. Challenges like COVID-19 bear the consequences on the pharma industries production at a large scale. As we were proceeding with week two learning on Milestones in Pharmaceutical Product Development. In my observation, Professor, Orin`s first presentation as I quoted, “ the development of new drug may reward the pharmaceutical industry for making a large gain, there are also hurdles involved which make pharma industries lose a great amount of money.” These issues of gain and losses are realised in the process of testing drug safety, efficacy, and efficiency to determine approval of new medicine/drugs. Besides, Professor Peter Gunning indicated in his lectures about the fundamental of academic research to discover and develop potential modern prescription/medicine for the disease. In my presentation and submission on the discussion forums, suggested an “innovation partnership in drug discovery, development and funding” to be crucial to the pharma industries.  This discussion reinforced the part of ideas discussed on Pharmaceutical Medicine, 20th Anniversary Symposium addressing enablers and barriers in the development of new drug/medicine. My conclusion on facilitators and barriers included decades of effort of expenditures and partnership, the heavy burden of finances and forging a strong alliance with interested partners. The above presentations influence me to put more interest and hard work in the assessment task 2, the current and future driver for therapeutic industries mostly dependent on the socio-cultural environment, technology environment and legal partnership. For example, at the socio-cultural climate today, the nations around are wrestling with COVID-19 pandemic posing contraction other industries ad sectors of the economy. The pharmaceutical industry expected to grow at more than 5.8 per cent[1]. Also, the key to future trends and growth in the sector include changes in consumer attitudes, online patient community, government and insurance company policies, disease prevalence, and AI partnership with big data[2]. Besides, at my workplace, supplying pharmacy support services to isolated and vulnerable communities such as paying for prescriptions have tended out more expensive in this time of COVID-19 pandemic.

Apart from COVID-19 challenges, many more encounters emerged, including the murder of my beloved cousin, who we shared accommodation. The death of a cousin has affected my psychological wellbeing, inflicted stress, and trauma, thus, almost affect me to drop out of the course. The intervention at the University of New South Wales, Department of Master of Pharmaceutical Medicine especially Professor Orin granting me an extension strengthen my morale to continue with the course to and be able to complete my assessments. March 2020 was one of the worst month experience in my life with lockdown and working online introduced by the workplaces. My daily work involved despatching care package, including prescript medicines/drugs to unable clients during COVID-19 pandemic. The work at this time of epidemic inflicted more fear and anxiety for a possible contraction of COVID-19, although, we almost wear protective equipment.

Interestingly as we were continuing with learning in week four, we found ourselves providing feedback as colleagues and team in the group assessment. In the assessment review, my work was focusing on how much each team members contributed to the evaluation. The evaluation was guided through the rubric to self-evaluate and evaluate my colleagues` work. One thing that was quite challenging is awarding marks to individual students. During assessing other students work, my emphasis on self-assessing was to reflect, critique, judge critically and ultimately form opinions to other student work. Some of the critical observations observed through peer assessment include the ability to give a better or less judgement to my fellow students and reflection through my work. On the other hands, there were doubts about the ability of other students whether they could provide reliable, fair, and conclusive results (grades) to other student assessments.

Looking at the rest of the course models, in my view was a tremendous undertaking to have learnt throughout the current status of the global therapeutic industry, history and structure, future strategies for therapeutics industry, the role of therapeutics in improving health outcomes and pharma ethics. In these sessions above, it was great to meet different pharma professionals from various industry providing lectures and supporting learning. Their talks reinforced my feedbacks online discussions. The online forums informed my discussions presentations to other students through critically analysing the work of others. Some of forum discussion topics selected for the assessment include Innovation Partnerships in Drug discovery, development, and funding, Investment in the Electric Production of Heat and Medical Technology and Pharmaceuticals.

These topics were so crucial in the present and future pharmaceutical industry. Innovation partnership in drug discovery, development, and funding future pharma industry sustainability new emerging world order is essential. It is worth mentioning that the price of the development of drugs or medicine is highly increasing around reimbursement agencies and healthcare providers. Indicated that high cost for new drug development could appear in the healthcare budget pending on the ever-increasing pressures. Pharma industries must invest in climate policy reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) for transparency in the climate change commitment and accountability.

The knowledge that gained in this semester one has been relevant to me, especially in the healthcare sector. The support for pharmacy prescription services to the vulnerable and isolated communities’ population in Collingwood is one of the areas of my work. It is an area of learning- pharmaceutical medicine to continue to gain more knowledge for future work and self-development.

Although there were hurdles faced during the semester, it is within my plan prerequisite to ensure that these hurdles are actioned upon as they come through. Time management, though, during the time of mourning, must be mitigated in a better way for successful completion in Master of Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Reference:

1.            Lou, B., & Wu, L.,. Artificial Intelligence and Drug Innovation: A large scale examination of the pharmaceutical industry. 2020; Available from: <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3524985>.

2.            Szmelter, A., Global pharmaceutical industry: characteristics and trends. In Global Supply Chains in the Pharmaceutical Industry. IGI Global, 2019: p. 57-85.