by Bertram Wolf

1. Pharmaceutical engineers – a success story?

The university education of pharmacists is still very much focussed on retail pharmacy, most probably because more than 90% of the German pharmacy students see their future in selling pharmaceutical products.

However, considering that within the last 40 years too many responsible positions in the pharmaceutical industry, such as production manager or quality assurance manager, were held by chemists, biologists or even veterinaries, a lack of industrial pharmacists becomes obvious.

As a first remedy, the technical college of Albstadt-Sigmaringen did create a faculty of pharmaceutical technology some 20 years ago, followed by Magdeburg 10 years later, the graduated engineers of which can now be found at small and middle-sized pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, mainly in the departments of manufacture, packaging, quality assurance, research and development, technology and process validation.

Very often their career was started with a trainee program, followed by a technical position, which then led to the function of project manager or group leader. Although the German legislation does not exclude pharmaceutical engineers from the positions of production or quality assurance manager, they have so far not yet been promoted into these functions yet.

However, the education of pharmaceutical engineers can only be acclaimed as a full success, as it produced for the first time specifically qualified staff for the pharmaceutical industry, because of the optimally conceived courses, combining natural science, pharmaceutical technology and basic pharmacy. Pharmaceutical engineers still have best job opportunities, which cannot be said from all professional engineering options.

2. Measuring up to the Bologna contract: bachelors and masters

Two recent decisions necessitate to adjust the present education model:
1. The Bologna contract signed by the EC members.
2. The requirement for a ”qualified person” to warrant correct manufacture and quality assurance of pharmaceutical products.

How might the Bologna contract affect the future of pharmaceutical engineers and industrial pharmacists?

For the former, 6 or 7 semesters will lead to bachelor degree and another 3 or 4 semester to the master degree, making in any case up to a total of 10, such matching the total time for obtaining a university degree in pharmacy, which should imperatively imply an equal level. The topical focus could be differentiated by the nomenclature ”Master of Science” for the university and "Master of Engineering” for the technical college.

The Master of Science would be skilled in natural sciences, pharmacy management, patient consulting, clinical pharmacy and pharmacology etc., whereas the Master of Engineering would excel in skills like process controls and instrumentation, clean room technology, process air conditioning, process, packaging and storage technology, risk assessment and operation safety etc.

3. The Bachelor’s job profile

The bachelor will still qualify as technical staff and project or group leader for the above mentioned departments of a pharmaceutical company. The Magdeburg education model (developed by the technical college Magdeburg-Stendal) foresees for the year 2006 a course ”bachelor of pharmaceutical technology” with only 7 instead of 8 semesters, as for the present graduation as pharmaceutical engineer. However, the theoretical and practical contents will hardly change. The present practical semester in the industry, taking place during the 5th semester, will be postponed to after the 7th semester for integration into the examination paper. Hence, the title ”bachelor” will clearly rank higher than the German job titles ”Pharmakant” and “Pharmameister”.

4. The Master’s job profile

The ”Magdeburg model” envisages to add the necessary 3 semesters for achieving the master degree directly after having obtained the bachelor’s degree. The 8th and 9th semester are spent at the technical college and the 10th in the industry, crowned by the master paper.

This matches the requirement for a university study which also foresees 8 semesters of study and 2 practical semesters in the industry, which should result in high job efficiency.

Consequently, the 10-semester education as ”Master of Engineering” should result in an equally high, although topical, qualification like the traditional university study of pharmacy or the future qualification as ”Master of Science”. Any chosen option will finally produce the ”qualified persons” required by the pharmaceutical industries.

Due to his specialized education the ”Master of Engineering” will be optimally suited to fill responsible positions in production, packaging, quality assurance and technology; whereas the ”Master of Science” will best qualify for research and development, controlling and project management.

Hence, a constructive realization of the Bologna contract will result in complementary and not competitive job profiles of pharmaceutical engineers and industrial pharmacists, provided that the universities, the technical colleges, the pharmaceutical industry and the relevant authorities will positively cooperate and overcome the traditional boarders of mutual understanding.

		Prof. Dr. Bertram Wolf did 1983 obtain his Ph.D. in Natural Science at the University of Leipzig, where he worked as Scientific Assistant at the Department of Pharmacy until 1998, when he became professor of pharmaceutical technology and quality assurance at the University of Applied Sciences at Magdeburg-Stendal. Contact: bertram.wolf@chemie.hs-magdeburg.de