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When I was evaluating the
field of publishing with respect to the pharmaceutical
industry in 1991, I was amazed to discover that with
over 20,000 manufacturers in India and over 300 pharmacy
colleges in addition to the various research
institutions, there were hardly any books being
published in India. The few that were being published
were catering to the prescribed syllabus for pharmacy
colleges and that too for the diploma and undergraduate
courses.
Even today, with an estimated workforce of 50,000 to
100,000 people (those engaged in the pharmaceutical and
allied industry and also those in research and
academics), there are hardly any authors. With this pool
of experienced professionals, we should have been
inundated with a wide variety of books with various
aspects of the profession. This has not happened however
and we should be made aware of this serious lapse on our
collective part. There are about 10-15 publishers only
which are seriously into the pharmaceutical field and
here too, the choice of books is rather limited. Most of
the books are catering to the diploma or 1st/2nd year B.
Pharm students, and hardly any books for the senior/M.
Pharm or Ph D students. The books that the students read
today are mostly based on past activities of the
pharmaceutical field and current or up-to-date
information on most subjects like pharmaceutics,
pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutical
engineering, pharmaceutical pharmacology etc. Many of
the college textbooks in use today by most colleges
include highly outdated Indian reprints of foreign
books. In case of knowledge requirements of the
pharmaceutical industry, the absence of good books is
felt even more acutely.
Some years back, I had advertised in the official
magazine of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association-Pharma
Times, that we require authors to come forward and write
books that we will publish. In those days (around
1997-98) Pharma Times magazine used to be sent to all
the members of the IPA without paying any further
subscription, so the circulation of the magazine was
quite high. Even then, I got a response from only 5
people and ultimately only one book was actually written
by a person, which we published. On interacting with
many people at various trade exhibitions, the responses
I got quite frequently were that either the people are
not confident that they are good enough to be an author
or that they are busy in their work and will write a
book after retirement.
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