Awesome Job Prospects in Pharmacovigilance

Pharmacovigilance has become an attractive career option for pharmacy and lifescience graduates. It involves the identification, validation, assessment and evaluation of adverse drug events post marketing.

What is it?

The safety of the medicines that we consume is all thanks to the pharmacovigilance officers who ensure that the drugs in the market are safe. They continuously monitor the safety of medicines both under clinical trial and those already released in the market. When a side effect of a drug is reported, they record these in the safety database, follow up for more information, report the case to regulatory authorities and probe the incident further. In short, they make sure that the drugs in the market are safe.

Pharmacovigilance Market – Bright Indeed

A large number of jobs in the pharmacovigilance sector have been generated because of the adoption of a worldwide systematic pharmacovigilance framework owing to international regulatory bodies. In 2015, the worldwide pharmacovigilance market is estimated to reach $2,253 million. Since India is the fourth largest manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and has over 6,000 licensed pharmaceutical producers, it offers great prospects for the growth of the pharmacovigilance sector. Some of the advantages include the presence of a large number of patients with abundant genetic diversity, a large world scale ADR (adverse drug reaction) database, and rapid introduction of lakhs of drug formulations into the domestic market.

Job Outlook and Salaries

The starting salaries for pharmacovigilance professionals depend on the educational background, hands-on experience, etc. and vary yearly as well as across organizations. Typically, DSA (Drug Safety Associate) is the entry level job. The job profile involves creation of cases, checking minimum safety information, reconciliation, follow up, data entry and medical coding. Freshers are paid anything between Rs. 15000 to Rs. 20000. After a 2-3 year experience, a DSA can be promoted to the role of a DSS (Drug safety scientist). DSSs are required to be very good in understanding ICH GCP compliance, regulatory affairs, scientific writing and medical coding. Those crossing 5 year experience in the sector can expect salaries between Rs. 50000 and Rs. 60000. Upon acquiring a good experience in narrative writing, pharmacovigilance professionals can move on from singular cases like writing for PADER (Periodic Adverse Drug Experience Reports) and become an Aggregate report scientist. Those with 7 to 10 years’ experience can be promoted to the position of a team lead followed by the position of a vice president or director.  After ten years of experience, pharmacovigilance professionals can expect salaries over Rs. 80000 to Rs. 90000.

Pharmacovigilance professionals are usually employed in clinical research organizations, pharmaceutical companies, KPOs, biotech companies, regulatory agencies and pharmacovigilance units in hospitals. They may also get placed in companies like Novartis, Merck, Bioserve, Clinigene, Johnson & Johnson, Ranbaxy, Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer and Reliance Life Science.

Those in this field can find lucrative jobs with attractive salaries. The pharmacovigilance industry in India is still budding and is yet to reach the levels required to be on par with other countries. However, this initial stage of the industry means that there are a lot of vacancies to fill.

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