Green Pharmacy: An emerging lexis in pharmaceuticals

RAU by designing green pharmacy courses is attempting to evolve, as well as separate-out, ayurved’s pharmacy from its medicine, which is expected to result into generation of new wealth of knowledge to resurge ayurveda as well as help the mankind for its healthcare needs, say prof Ram Harsh Singh & Dr Vipin Bihari Gupta

Green Pharmacy is one of the most rapidly emerging lexis in pharmaceutical arena. It encompasses modern herbal medicines and time tested holistic systems ie. ayurved, unani, siddha and the alike.

Following WHO’s estimation that the global market for greens, which currently is US $150 billion, is likely to detonate to US $5 trillion by year 2050 with a robust consistent growth rate, most of the pharma majors are intensifying on greens. There is hardly any modern pharmaceutical company, which is not keen to enter this segment. Perhaps, the current global leader in green business is China, India’s prospects are much brighter as its system, the ayurved, is the most time-tested, and hence, the trustworthy.

Rajasthan Ayurved University (RAU), which is committed to interface tradition with science and academia with industry, has decided the globalisation of ayurved and green pharmacy to be its hallmarks. It is apparent that for ayurved to go global, it needs to imbibe modern technology while retaining its holistic wisdom so as to evolve into an all round system. For this to occur, it is vital that the pharmacy and medicine of ayurved are separated, as is the case with modern medicines (MBBS and B Pharm).

As a matter of fact, the domains of the two are so vast that a single person cannot master both and this is the reason why all around the globe Acts do not allow a single person to practice medicine as well as pharmacy.

RAU by designing green pharmacy courses is attempting to evolve, as well as separate-out, ayurved’s pharmacy from its medicine. This is expected to result into generation of new wealth of knowledge to resurge the ayurved as well as help the mankind for its healthcare needs.

As per the Gazette Notification of March 7, 2003 (Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 2003), GMP has now become mandatory for all Indian systems. Various state governments are attempting its enforcement at their individual pace; RAU believes that a simple BAMS or B Pharm may not be competent enough to ensure the GMP. It’s only those received hybrid training of ayurved as well as pharmacy would be able to do the required.

Since B Pharm (Ay) is yet to properly evolve, for the time being, involvement of BAMS could be considered appropriate. Reacting to the proposals of RAU, the Government of Rajasthan incorporated these programs in its budget announcement of 2004-2005. This article is in continuation to the Green Pharmacy article series that has been appearing in the Express Pharma Pulse time to time.

The PG programmes in green pharmacy ie. M Pharm (Ay) Formulation Technology and M Pharm (Ay) Herbal Technology have been discussed earlier, and this article focuses on the undergraduate programmes. The M Pharm (Ay) courses are designed to result into the knowledge generation leading to technological advancement and development of standards, B Pharm (Ay) to result into production of consistently high quality products, and D Pharm (Ay) to have some improvisation in the practice or trading aspects of green pharmaceuticals.

Statutory Intricacies

Pharmacy is a regulated profession, therefore, registration is obligatory before somebody could practice it, and henceforth the institutes imparting education require obtaining approval of the registering authority. Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), the regulating body, cannot approve a course unless it is taught with the contents prescribed by it.

Contrary to the spirit of green pharmacy, PCI’s course contents are essentially designed for the allopathy and cannot be considered fit for green pharmacy students. One way of solving this problem could have been putting all what is required by the PCI, and adding what is required to cover the green pharmacy aspect.

But, this can be achieved only in two ways, perhaps both inappropriate, ie. by making the programme bulgy or by keeping the green pharmacy aspects very sparsely. In this context we studied the model of Jamia Hamdard University, which offers PCI approved programs in unani pharmacy. The programmes, D Pharm (unani) and B Pharm (unani) are PCI syllabus plus one paper of unani, which does not justify it being a programme of unani pharmacy.

RAU does not want to promote green pharmacy as an alternate, second-grade or me-too add-on pharmacy programme, but with its righteous approbation, which is impossible without putting a solid dose of core-curriculum.

Therefore, RAU’s curriculum committee decided to put its prime concern for technical solidarity to the program, rather than statutory approval of the PCI.

As RAU is not following PCI syllabus, PCI would not be approving these courses and consequently its graduates would not be eligible for registration with PCI or its state organelles. Perhaps, the problem of approval is only with UG students, PG students are not affected because they would already be registered by virtue of their baccalaureate degrees. None-the-less registration issue would not hamper the interests of RAU graduates, as it’s only the retailing of allopathic medicines for which registration is required. RAU neither intend to teach allopathic pharmacy nor intend its graduates to practice the same. Henceforth, RAU graduates would be free to pursue their profession without any hindrance. Though it would be their technical superiority that will support them, as they would not enjoy the right of excluding others, which registered pharmacists enjoy for allopathic medicines. Perchance, ‘Indian Medicine Pharmacy Council Bill 1999’ is in pipeline which advocates for the constitution of a separate Pharmacy Council for Ayurved and Siddha in the lines of already existing Council for Homeopathic Pharmacy. If this act gets enacted than ’Green Pharmacy’ diploma or degree holders would also enjoy the right of exclusivity. It is worth noting that as the professions grow, so grows the legislation covering them. Recently ’Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy (CCRYN)’ has made it mandatory for all the practitioners of yoga and naturopathy to get themselves registered with the council and incidentally RAU is pioneering in offering the degree program ’Bachelor of Naturopathy & Yogic Sciences (BNYS)’ which would become prerequisite for the registrant in subsequent registers. RAU would attempt getting approval of its courses by AICTE.

Eligibility Criteria

The eligibility criterion for B Pharm (Ay) has been fixed as diploma in pharmacy or 10+2 (with science), and for D Pharm (Ay) 10+2 in any stream. The reason for not putting a science compulsion at 10+2 level (contrary to PCI directives) for the diploma course is this that it is basically a short-term introductory course.

And at the same time, ayurved is not merely a science; it’s much more than this. It’s a wisdom, knowledge, art as well as science; hence, science cannot become a compulsion for pursuing Ayurved. However, as green pharmacy programmes are hybrid of ayurved and modern technology, science background is imperative for understanding technology part of it.

Yet again, as B Pharm (Ay) is designed to make experts while D Pharm (Ay) proletarians, the relaxation is justified. Perhaps, as D Pharm (Ay) is eligible for admission into B Pharm (Ay), a non-science 10+2 might ultimately end-up doing B Pharm (Ay), therefore, no provision for any lateral entry has been kept, and diploma holders pursuing degree would require do all four years of the course of study.

Course Contents

At the time of framing the courses a simple formula of ’Pharmacy minus Allopathy plus Ayurved’ was used and whatever came out of this formula was thoroughly scrutinised to delete any irrelevant and outdated contents, and then the contents were fortified with the advances in relevant areas. The syllabi are spread on an average of 32 hours of per week workload, sparing 4 hours or the individualised activities out of the standard 36-hour per week institutional workload.

D Pharm (Ay): The time span for this program has been fixed as only one year and its contents are principally structured so as to make the student approbate for working as an assistant or semiskilled person and also carry out his or her own business. This program has 8 papers, which covers almost all the contents of PCI diploma syllabus, barring the allopathy, in a refined and updated way. ‘Introduction to Ayurved’ and ‘Ayurvedic Materia Medica’ papers are purely devoted to Ayurved covering the basics and the material aspects respectively.

B Pharm (Ay): This is a four-year heavy-duty program with each year having its course work spread in six or seven papers. Similar to the diploma course, this program also has some papers exclusive of Ayurved and then there are papers on Pharmaceutical Technology or allied aspects. However, in Technology related or allied papers, Ayurved has been inculcated wherever appropriate, for example, traditional equipment described in Ayurved have been put under ‘Pharmaceutical Engineering’ and dosage forms like the ones described under Sandhan Kalpana are put under ‘Biotechnology’.

As ayurvedic-herbal cosmetics are also getting wide popularity, an exclusive paper covering exhaustive details of the principles and practices of Cosmeticology has been put in 4th year. All practice aspects of pharmacy ie. community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and clinical pharmacy have been combined in one paper.

Considering the potential of ayurvedic patent products, a paper has been put to cover the product development aspects as well as stability assessment and expiry dating. Standardisation and quality assurance are points of immediate attention in ayurved, and hence, enough papers have been put to cover these. Human anatomy and physiology would be taught in two papers, separately covering the ayurvedic and modern concepts of it. On ayurved side Dravyaguna Vigyan, Bhaisjya Kalpana Vigyan and Rasa Shastra have been considered the most.

Job Opportunities: B Pharm (Ay) programme is designed to make the student competent for working in manufacturing units of Ayurvedic-Herbal medicines and other FMCG products. It is a fact that ayurvedic-herbal drug industry seriously suffer from the lack of competent manpower as the courses available in ayurved do not make the student competent in modern technology whilst the courses available in Pharmacy do not impart the knowledge of ayurved, the students having done B Pharm (Ay) course would remain in high demand.

D Pharm (Ay) is an introductory course imparting the superficial knowledge. Students having done this would not be experts of their field but still be definitely able to serve the society as well as earn good livelihood. The intention is this that these would go in marketing of Ayurvedic-Herbal medicines, cosmetics and other FMCG product in various capacities including the one of Medical Representative, or work as Assistant Pharmacist in Ayurvedic hospital and dispensaries and open their own Ayurvedic stores. As students with 10+2 in commerce and arts are also included in the eligibility criteria, it’s presumed that these would have an edge in the jobs mentioned above.

Prof. Ram Harsh Singh is Vice Chancellor, Rajasthan Ayurved University, Jodhpur & Dr Vipin Bihari Gupta is head, Department of Pharmaceutics, LMCST, Jodhpur