Under the patronage of Prof. Dr. Ahmed Sameh Farid, President of Newgiza University (NGU), and the Egyptian Drug Authority, Newgiza University organized the International Pharmaceutical Conference “Roadmap for Pharmacy Profession: Challenges and Opportunities” on 21-22 June 2023.
The conference started with welcome speeches by Prof. Dr. Lamis Ragab, NGU Vice President, Prof. Dr. Ayman Elkhatib, Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian Drug Authority, Prof. Dr. Manal Maher, NGU School of Pharmacy Dean and the Chairman of the conference, as well as Dr. Oksana Pyzik, representative of University College London (UCL), the academic partner of NGU School of Pharmacy.
Through her speech, Prof. Dr. Manal Maher explained that change and dynamism are the modern features of the pharmacy profession, and that was the core concept of the conference which brought together key influential players in the fields of pharmaceutical industry, regulation, scientific research, and academia.
The conference program comprised a plenary session, during which Prof. Azza Agha, Former Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at Cairo University, emphasized the need for the immediate application of modern pharmaceutical curricula that focus on the quality of pharmacy graduates while factoring in the requirements of the future labor market, through the interactive education among students of the various medical sectors. The plenary session was followed by four sessions and panel discussions divided over the two days of the conference, starting with a panel discussion that included Prof. Dr. Ayman Elkhatib, Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian Drug Authority, General Dr. Tarek Abdelrahman, Vice Chairman of the Egyptian Unified Procurement Authority (UPA), Dr. Hany Rashed, Vice Chairman of the General Authority of Healthcare (GAH), Dr. Gamal El-Leithy, Head of the Pharmaceutical Chamber of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, Dr. Riad Armanious, Chief Executive Officer of Eva Pharma, in addition to Prof. Cate Whittlesea, Director of Clinical Education at UCL School of Pharmacy, and Prof. Ian Bates, Chair of Pharmacy Education at UCL School of Pharmacy, who virtually joined the conference. This session titled “Roadmap for Pharmacy Profession: Stakeholders Perspective” highlighted the similarities and differences between the pharmaceutical labor market in Egypt and the United Kingdom. The discussion revealed a lot of commonalities between the two markets, which is a feature that NGU School of Pharmacy capitalizes on, to prepare its graduates to work in both the local and international markets.
In the second session, the Egyptian Drug Authority discussed, with representatives from the drug industry, practical ways to localize modern up-to-date technologies in the drug industry, addressing the challenges and ways to overcome them and highlighting the opportunities which pave the way for pharmacists to fill essential needs that didn’t exist in the recent past.
Disruptive innovations and nontraditional problem-solving techniques, and how to transfer them from laboratories and put them into practice and use were the main topics of the third session, as researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Egypt shared their practical experiences in realizing the dream of translating ideas into products that benefit everyone.
The final session of the conference addressed the empowerment of future pharmacists, through enriching the modern education methods with the merits of the traditional education to achieve the highest quality, competitiveness, and excellence of the pharmacy graduate. Leaders in the medical field from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, as well as directors of pharmaceutical companies shared their thoughts on matching the competencies of the pharmaceutical education with the labor market aspirations for the optimal advancement of the pharmacy profession, with the ultimate goal of preserving the patients’ health and quality of life.
The conference concluded with a recommendation for the continuous cooperation between the academic and research institutions to create qualified pharmacists who can cater to the local and global variables and requirements and the competencies of artificial intelligence on one hand, as well as the decision makers and work sectors through which pharmacists contribute to building the society on the other hand, aligning the pharmacy profession’s goals with Egypt’s 2030 plan.
