Greater Noida/ New Delhi: Women are not only adept in preparing delicious foods taking them straight to hearts, they can better cook drugs for the treatment of diseases as well. This was one significant takeaway form pharma Kumbh CPHI & PMEC organized at India Expo Centre in Greater Noida. The discussion around theme ‘Women in Pharma’ mooted the gender question underlining issues specific to women which might hinder them in harnessing their full potential in pharma domain.
The upshot was that the preponderance of women workforce and leaderships can become Advantage pharma and patients if feminine issues that might hinder are addressed. The woman pharma leaders partaking of the discussion converged on the view that those issues could be and should be addressed to make way for women dominance in pharma domain.
Primed for top position any time soon, Dr Anu T Singh, Chief Scientific Officer, Dabur Research Foundation was a prominent voice in the Women in Pharma discourse. Talking to Medicare News, she batted in favour of women being in majority in pharmaceutical companies as according to her they are more suited for drug development in comparison to men. Flaunting 60 percent women workforce in her organization, Mrs Singh said that women are far better in detailing which is a sine qua non for drug development. If issues hampering their growth in pharma are addressed, they can be asset for any pharmaceutical company. Women pharmacologists will prove more resourceful so far as drug development and its testing is concerned. But largely, the domain is still male dominated.’
Other interlocutors in the round table included Viveka Roychowdhury , Editor, Express Pharma & Express Healthcare, Indian Express, Sridevi Khambhampaty, PhD, Vice President, Biopharmaceutical Development, Syngene International Limited, Ruchi Saxena , General Manager (Sales Head), Sentiss India Business, Dr. Sunita Yadav, Technical Head Academia and Hospital segment, Merck SLS, Suman Sharma, Marketing Director AMEA, Centrient Pharmaceuticals, Jyotsna Ghoshal, Enterprise Lead, Government Affairs & Policy, India, Johnson & Johnson and Dr. Kashish Aziz, Vice President Quality, Unicure India Ltd. In the round table all raised the practical issues confronting women and stressed the need to address them to augment women professionals in Pharma realm. By bringing about the balance and ending the gender bias, pharma companies can make the world a much healthier place.
The opinion veered towards many issues. The discussion underlined skewed women representation on different levels. They said gender equality provides numerous economic benefits to corporates. Fortune 500 companies with the best gender representation on their boards have historically generated a significantly higher return on sales and equity than those with few or no women. Empowering women in decisions about drug research and access to medicines can pave the way to genuinely equitable healthcare. Unfortunately, even though similar numbers of men and women enter the workforce with advanced degrees in life sciences and medicine, only a few of the biggest pharmaceutical companies currently have female CEO.
Globally, women make up under 30% of executive directors at the top firms. There is a shortage of leadership pipelines in India to encourage women to take senior positions as leaders. Most of the hiring occurs at the entry level, indicating that it will take long years for the pharma industry in India to have women leaders. With most of the focus concentrated on entry and mid-level hiring, it is imperative to hire women for top levels and build leadership strength.
In the meantime, focused on demonstrating a new shape of the pharmaceutical manufacturing in the post COVID era, CPHI & PMEC India 2022, organized by Informa Markets in India, turned out a great success and witnessed massive foot falls.The co-located shows provided a unique opportunity to all the stakeholders to discuss the entire range of pharma machinery, analytical instruments, laboratory technologies and equipment’s, ancillaries, ingredients and more in a hybrid format.the 15th edition of CPHI & PMEC India on the theme#GetPharmore with Pharmore opportunities and Pharmore connections, witnessed one of the largest gatherings of industry experts, leading manufacturers, buyers’ community, policy advisors, and other key stakeholders. The grand inauguration ceremony marked by the presence of key dignitaries Dr. Veeramani S.V, Vice-Chairman Pharmexcil, Mr Alessandro Liberatori, Director, Italian Trade Commissions, Mr AVPS Chakravarthi, Ambassador – World Packaging Organisation & Board Member Pharmexcil, Mr Bodh Raj Sikri, Chairman, Federation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs, Margaret Ma, President & CEO Informa Markets Asia, Mr Chris Eve, Executive. Vice President, Informa Markets Asia; Mr. Yogesh Mudras, Managing Director, Informa Markets in India, Mr Rahul Deshpande, Senior Group Director, Informa Markets in India, and Mr Ranjith Paul, Group Director, Informa Markets in India.
