EDUCATION. The Pharmacy Program’s degree prepares students for research and developing pharmaceuticals. The program is now expanding its profile by developing elective courses together with AstraZeneca.
While looking for programs focused on chemistry and biology, Alva Jonsson found the Pharmacy Program.
“I’ve wanted to be a scientist since I was small. First, I was looking at engineering programs within biochemistry and biology but quickly realized the pharmacy program included a perfect mix of everything I like,” says Jonsson, who is hoping to do her PhD after her master’s and a few years of experience as a pharmacist.
Now halfway through the program, she feels like the connection to industry and research varies between the different courses, and she is happy that the program is expanding its connections with AstraZeneca.
“The company is physically close, and the University can get help ensuring we receive an education that actually prepares us for careers, not just within health care or pharmacology but also within research and industry.”
Intense courses
Pharmacist is the academic professional title for society’s medication experts. The labour market is very promising, and there are many opportunities. Pharmacists can work with everything from managing pharmaceuticals within the medical care system to research and development of pharmaceuticals within higher education and industry. Naturally, many apply to the program initially planning to work at pharmacies.
“Some students are chocked after the first semesters, since they imagined working behind a prescription counter and had not realized there were intense courses requiring serious studies. Many of our students are high achievers, and by emphasizing our research profile, we want to attract even more students who want a career in research and development,” says Mike Winder, associate professor and head of the Department of Pharmacology.
“In recent decades, the minimum points for admission to the Pharmacy Program in Sweden have fallen. If the minimum number of points required for admission increased again, I think more students would also complete the program.”
AstraZeneca has many pharmacists
For input on how to develop the program and provide expertise in areas in demand by the pharmaceutical industry, the pharmacy program invited AstraZeneca to appoint a representative to the Program Committee. For the last four years, the position has been filled by Jonas Ödman, who studied pharmacy at Uppsala University and is now Senior Project Lead at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg.
“We have already made minor adjustments for industry on some courses, such as in galenic formulation pharmacology, which deals with how medications are developed and manufactured. What we’ve started is a long-term and time-consuming effort to change and improve the basic education,” explains Jonas. Mike agrees:
“We also plan to develop additional elective courses together, but we are taking one step at a time.”
The vision for the elective courses in semester 8 is to create one or more tracks, where the course content is specially developed for students aiming to work in the pharmaceutical industry and with drug development. Hopefully, students accepted to the pharmacy program in the autumn will be the first to choose an entire track of elective courses focused on drug development and research.
Mike explains that there are plans to use facilities at GoCo Health Innovation City for courses. A five-week course might be located at GoCo and AstraZeneca. GoCo Health Innovation City is an initiative for developing a large business park within the life sciences in connection with AstraZeneca.
Study visits to the Gothenburg site
In previous years, several employees from AstraZeneca have provided individual lectures for the Pharmacy Program, such as in pharmacokinetics, which is a profile subject for pharmacists. Students can also do study visits at the company’s Gothenburg site early in the program.
“Students can also do their degree project together with staff at AstraZeneca. We hope that more students will do their degree projects at AstraZeneca, and we hope there can be more visits both at the Gothenburg site and the new expansive GoCo area,” says Jonas.
About 10 percent of everyone who works at AstraZeneca’s Gothenburg site have a pharmacy degree and many have also completed their doctoral degree. These pharmacists work with everything from developing, manufacturing and analysis of pharmaceutical products early in the development phase to clinical research with global large-scale clinical studies and regulatory affairs, which involves being responsible for registering products and contacts with drug approval authorities globally.
BY: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
