pharma
in english
This edition of Pharma
features an article on
a new Pharmadanmark
management network
and on the remarkable
developments in the
treatment of HIV.
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pharma 2 · 2017
Pharmacy conference
discusses professional
competency
Last month, more than 200 pharmacists gathered to discuss the future of Danish
pharmacies – not least in light of the Danish Pharmacy Act which was introduced in
2015.
“The Act has resulted in great upheaval for the whole sector. It contains both upsides and downsides. From a pharmacy professional’s point of view, incorporating
medical consultations into this piece of legislation has been a stroke of genius. It
has given pharmacists an independent framework which sets out the role this professional group needs to play in Danish pharmacies,” said Rikke Løvig Simonsen,
chairman of Pharmadanmark, at the conference panel debate.
On the downside, the Act has allowed more pharmacy branches to be set up –
but without any requirement that they should be staffed by trained pharmacists.
“This is a problem as it generates inequality in healthcare because not everywhere offers access to the best pharmaceutical advice – the advice that pharmacists working in pharmacies are able to offer,” she explained.
It is also problematic that many grants for available pharmacies have been
awarded to existing pharmacists – and not to other eligible pharmacists among the
applicants.
“Unfortunately, I think that many people will be reconsidering their future in this
sector when they cannot see a natural career path on offer ahead of them. I am worried that this will make some outstanding pharmacists leave the sector because of
the lack of available pharmacies.”
Rikke Løvig Simonsen also called on pharmacists to invest in their professionalism.
“You need to want this level of professionalism. You have to dare to go out and
take responsibility as pharmaceutical specialists, dare to meet patients as equals
and take decisions. You are the specialists who are best qualified to do that. That is
what pharmaceutical experts like you have to do.”
Overwhelming interest in
new management network
Many of Pharmadanmark’s members working in the private sector occupy
managerial positions – from top executives to managers of e.g. small
teams of specialists. On the initiative of Deputy Chairman Behzad Ghorbani, the Board of Pharmadanmark has now started work on setting up a
dedicated network aimed at this group of members.
The Board works continuously to develop Pharmadanmark’s membership benefits, including networking opportunities, which form a key part
of the association’s offering. Setting up a management network is an obvious step when so many of Pharmadanmark’s members earn their living as
management professionals.
At the kick-off next month, participants will attempt to define the format
of the network and the services it should offer its members. The question
is how to ensure that the network is able to cater to all the different types
of manager wishing to participate.
But with 130 participants already signed up to the initial meeting, it
looks like there is a great deal of interest in this kind of management network and that it will prove to be viable and a valuable addition to Pharmadanmark’s other professional networks.
Find out more at www.pharmadanmark.dk
Pharmacy graduates as
entrepreneurs
Pharma is introducing a series of articles featuring pharmacy graduates
who are taking the leap as entrepreneurs and setting up their own businesses. First up is Thomas M Frøsig who is CEO of ImmuMap Services, a
start-up research company.
“I could either have continued down the research route and gone all out
to set up a research group where fundraising plays a significant role and
competition for funds is extremely fierce. Or I could go into the private sector and a permanent, very well-paid job,” he says and continues:
“But neither of those options appealed to me. The research environment was a bit too navel-gazing and out of touch with reality for me while a
secure job in industry risked being unfulfilling and monotonous”.
But a third option opened up, namely ImmuMap Services.
The product ImmuMap sells, mainly to small biotech companies, is immunoanalysis at cellular level. The company’s knowhow about this type of
cellular level analysis is what it markets itself on – and it is immunotherapeutic drugs for cancer treatment, in particular, that Thomas M Frøsig analyses for his clients.
He has been a self-employed entrepreneur for about four months now
and is still learning the many different aspects of the job.
From death
sentence to
chronic illness
Few diseases – if any – have in such a short
space of time gone from being the equivalent to a death sentence to being a chronic
illness with which the patient is able to live.
But HIV has. 35 years ago no one knew the
reason for the many deaths that were suddenly occurring, especially among gay men.
Today treatment for HIV offers patients a
largely normal life and life expectancy.
“In the thirty-something years I have
been a doctor, no disease has changed as
drastically in that patients have gone from a
diagnosis of a very low survival rate to having a life like anyone else. If you look at other diseases, like diabetes and cancer, for
example, a great deal of work has been put
into them for many years without our seeing
anywhere near the same results as is the
case for HIV,” says Professor Niels Obel
from the Department of Infectious Diseases
at Rigshospitalet.
The key in the all-important breakthrough in the treatment of HIV has been
the combination of pharmaceutical drugs. It
may come as a surprise to most people just
how effective treating patients with several
drugs simultaneously has been.
“Because HIV drugs have now become so
effective and the long-term prognosis for
patients is so good, doctors are increasingly focusing on other risk factors, such as
smoking, when new patients come in for
treatment,” explains Niels Obel.
“For some reason, HIV patients smoke
twice as much as everyone else. That means
that they also have twice the risk of lung
cancer. That is why one of the most important messages in out-patient clinics now is
that the cigarettes have to go. What kills
most HIV patients these days is smoking.
Being HIV positive and smoking is now
probably equally dangerous,” he says.
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