Professor forecasts crisis in pharmacy profession

     Dr. William Stagner, professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and director of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Institute at Campbell University, said the profession’s current critical shortages in the number of practitioners, scientists, academicians and break-through medications it is able to produce will only become graver in the near future. Stagner spoke on the subject at the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress, an international conference sponsored by the Indian Pharmaceutical Association in Mumbai, India, recently.
     “Over the last 15 years, the pharmaceutical industry has become less and less productive,” Stagner said. “The number of new medical entities has decreased while development costs have increased. In 2004, the United States hit a 20-year low. I think the problem is beyond critical.”
     According to Stagner’s research the demand for pharmacists to provide pharmaceutical care is growing at a much faster rate than the number of pharmacy graduates each year. The number of prescriptions and drug orders is increasing at a rate of approximately 68 percent per year, while the number of graduates is increasing by a rate of only eight percent. Medications are also becoming increasingly complex due to new therapeutic targets and the need to understand heterogeneous populations.
     “Since the mid-1970’s, decreases in government-funded research in pharmaceutical sciences and an increasing emphasis on clinical practice in pharmacy schools has resulted in a decrease in the supply of qualified pharmaceutical scientists in product development and related technologies,” Stagner said. “There is also a decrease in the number of compounds coming up for approval and the speed with which new products can get to market.”
     Education is key to solving these crucial shortages, Stagner said, but the U.S. faces a serious and long-term faculty shortage when 37 percent of the pharmacy school faculty is the age of 50 or older and 24 percent of the deans are 60 or over.
     “Forty percent of the faculty vacancies go unfilled for six months to two years,” he pointed out.
     With its innovative pharmacy programs, Campbell University is confronting the crisis head-on, however. By offering both bachelors and masters degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Research as well as the Doctor of Pharmacy degree, the university helps to provide well-trained professionals in each industry field.
     “One thing I’ve always found attractive about Campbell,” said Stagner, who worked in product development for GlaxoWellcome for many years, “is its growing pharmacy program. There are very few schools that offer this kind of education.”
     Indeed, there are only 12 programs like Campbell’s in the U.S. Campbell has also established a Pharmaceutical Sciences Institute (CUPSI), which operates in the Pharmacy Research Facility and is a resource for teaching, research and product development and analysis.
     “The Pharmacy Research Facility is designed so that we can develop and manufacture clinical materials to help support clinical studies for research,” Stagner said. “There are only five or six universities in the nation with this kind of capability.”
     Dr. William Stagner earned a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy with highest honors and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. He has more than 25 years of industrial product development experience and is responsible for 25 approved commercial products. From 1999-2004, he was senior vice president and general manager for Cardinal Health where he founded the Pharmaceutics Division at Research Triangle Park, N.C. He also served as Group Director for Dermatology Research and Development for GlaxoWellcome from 1995-1999. He has more than 35 presentations and publications in the areas of preformulation and product development.


Photo Copy: Dr. William Stagner, professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Campbell University.