The average human life span around the world has seen an increase. Especially in the developed world, the average human life span is hovering around 70 years and is projected to increase. This is the highest known average lifespan in recorded human history. This increase in average age is largely due to developments in the pharmaceutical industry. The evolving field of medicines, biotechnological fields such as therapeutic, stem -ell based, hormonal and genetics based medicines has pushed pharmaceutical onto the back burner. Still the expertise that a pharmaceutical education provides is extremely valuable and cannot be substituted with any other field.
Pharmaceutical education is seeing a social, as well as psychological change. Pharmaceutical companies have started participating in educating the new graduates and researchers to provide academic talent to the developing health industry. People now recognize that keeping patents a secret by large multinational companies do not help the pharmaceutical field. It has to keep evolving and this is only possible by the continued effort of companies and universities. The pharmacy education needs to facilitate changes and encourage leadership.
The pharmaceutical education is about to go through a phase of evolution where ideas and knowledge are shared openly to facilitate and accelerate discovery. Being interdependent is the new motto rather than being independent. Educators, facilitators, students and governments are bringing about this change together. The advancement in pharmaceutical education could possibly decrease the number of addicts checking into a drug treatment center due to addictions to prescription pain killers. Education is the first step to making parents, teachers, and students realize that just because it says M.D. on the bottle doesn’t mean it can’t be considered a harmful substance.
Currently pharmaceutical education is a rapidly evolving field. Syllabuses and curriculum of pharmaceutical education are constantly being upgraded. New techniques which were previously under various stringent patents are being lifted. The patents are lifted voluntarily by companies and also because of expiry of the patents’ 20 year period. Since most of the patents were received at the time of pharmaceutical boom in the 1980s and 1990s, they have expired and suddenly medical information is up for grabs and for the good of all.