Digital upskilling has become the need of the hour for the pharma sector

The pharmaceuticals industry has largely been known to be set in its ways, with processes remaining the same longer and skills required being tough to replicate easily. However, the pandemic did a number on the pharma sector, just as it did for others. When pharma firms were gunning to find the antidote to the virus, they, like all others, had to do it from home. Which in turn led to the entry of more digital processes and skills.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and that has forced us to adapt and adopt technology,” said Dr. Sanjay Arora, Global Medical Director, Dr. Lal Path Labs and Founder of Suburban Diagnostics, speaking at the Transforming Pharma: Formulating effective upskilling strategies webinar by Business Insider.

While Arora argued that the pharma sector has always needed employees to upskill themselves and keep up with the newest scientific discoveries and diseases, he identified automation and the effective use of data analytics as two big changes in the industry.

“The talent has been quite fungible over the last one or one and a half years. It is not just for pharma, it is across industries and the globe. But pharma got more impacted because it’s a knowledge industry, and a lot of people who carry that knowledge can’t be substituted by somebody who just comes in with the same number of years or background of education. Hence the need to quickly train the new people coming in and make sure that the delivery was not impacted.” said Amitava Saha, President and CHRO, Biocon Group.

Saha noted that things are changing rapidly in the industry, not just in laboratories but also in manufacturing units. “The rules are changing, as are the efficiency indexes,” he said, adding that the use of technology is inevitable in such a situation.

“Imagine the pace at which the (Covid-19) vaccine was developed without compromising on any regulatory process. Digital transformation was the backbone,” noted Dr. Anil Kukreja, Vice President, Medical Affairs and Regulatory, Astrazeneca India. He added that real-time data analytics were instrumental in bringing insights into research, and sharing those insights with regulators across the world.

Further, Yugal Sikri, Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences, pointed out that the pharma industry is unique because “your product is a technical product”. “You have to have techno and commercial, both dimensions clear, because the industry is extremely competitive. Particularly the generic (drug) industry is extremely competitive, we have 10,000 odd companies in India (alone). So you need to have both the techno and commercial skills,” he said.

The need for upskilling though is not the responsibility of employees alone. “One of the things that we hear during this Great Resignation is that people are moving jobs, and one of the reasons they cite is that they’re not learning enough. So they’re trying to learn somewhere else,” said Dulles Krishnan, Managing Director, Coursera Enterprise, India and ANZ. He admitted, however, that many are also not spending as much time learning, and companies and platforms need to solve that, to motivate people to learn.

“When the human is challenged, he learns really fast,” added Dr. A Vehlumani, PhD, Creator, Thyrocare. “Whenever we are challenged more, we will learn more and we get more skills. The more problems you solve, the more skilled you become. The bigger the problems you solve, you become more powerful,” he said.

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