Pharma Veterans

Pakistan Pharma Industry SWOT – Part 4 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #595 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #595 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Opening Note February 2022 shall mark my completing 47 years of working in Pharma Industry. Allah be praised. I am still working. The first half of my working career was spent in Multinational companies, and the latter half in the Local Pharma, making me well-versed with both innovators and generics markets. I also had the opportunity to work in business as well as operations.  My journey of near half century is also the journey of Pharma Industry in Pakistan. Great changes have occurred in this time and a lot could be written about it. In my blogs, which were star...

Pakistan Pharma Industry SWOT - Part 3 - Asrar Qureshi's Blog Post #594 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #594 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Opening Note February 2022 shall mark my completing 47 years of working in Pharma Industry. Allah be praised. I am still working. The first half of my working career was spent in Multinational companies, and the latter half in the Local Pharma, making me well-versed with both innovators and generics markets. I also had the opportunity to work in business as well as operations.  My journey of near half century is also the journey of Pharma Industry in Pakistan. Great changes have occurred in this time and a lot could be written about it. In my blogs, which were star...

Pakistan Pharma Industry SWOT – Part 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #593 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #593 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Opening Note February 2022 shall mark my completing 47 years of working in Pharma Industry. Allah be praised. I am still working. The first half of my working career was spent in Multinational companies, and the latter half in the Local Pharma, making me well-versed with both innovators and generics markets. I also had the opportunity to work in business as well as operations.  My journey of near half century is also the journey of Pharma Industry in Pakistan. Great changes have occurred in this time and a lot could be written about it. In my blogs, which were star...

Pakistan Pharma Industry SWOT – Part 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #592 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #592 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Opening Note February 2022 shall mark my completing 47 years of working in Pharma Industry. Allah be praised. I am still working. The first half of my working career was spent in Multinational companies, and the latter half in the Local Pharma, making me well-versed with both innovators and generics markets. I also had the opportunity to work in business as well as operations.  My journey of near half century is also the journey of Pharma Industry in Pakistan. Great changes have occurred in this time and a lot could be written about it. In my blogs, which were star...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 6 – Last Part – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #591 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #591. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. I would like to quote results of one more study and then we move to sum up our discussion on the topic of drug abuse in Pakistan. This 2018 study was conducted on addicts admitted in the rehabilitation centers of Islamabad. A total of 102 male patients were interviewed, whose mean age was 28.4 years (+ 9.8). 14% were aged between 15-20 years. 35% initiated drug abuse during teen years. 60% were skilled, and 47% with secondary education, and 8% were students. Heroin was the most abused substance (48%) followed by Cannabis (28%). Mean duration of substance abuse was 1 to 5 y...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 5 – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #590 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #590. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. I would like to quote from a very recent article (published December 14, 2021) by a student at National Defence University, Islamabad, Ms. Palwasha Khan. “With the recent withdrawal of US troops and NATO forces from Afghanistan and the takeover of the Taliban, the smuggling of narcotics into Pakistan has further increased. In Pakistan, the prevalence of drug abuse is increasing at an alarming rate. However, risk factors, which are increasing vulnerability toward addiction, remain largely elusive.” The most used drugs are heroin and marijuana, with cannabinoids becoming more popular. O...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 4 – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #589 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #589. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Abuse of psychotropic medicine, particularly benzodiazepines, goes back to many years. Valium (diazepam) and Ativan (lorazepam) were long abused by those who knew about them. The Pharma companies always maintained that these drugs were not addictive, rather only habit-forming. However, the habit was almost as strong as addiction, and many people got hooked on to them. Then came Lexotanil (bromazepam) and it replaced earlier products quickly. Two patterns were easily discernible: normal people got a prescription for anxiety and/or sleeping difficulty, they found relief and stuck to it;...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 3 – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #588 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #588. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Most addicts use Heroin through smoking, either in a cigarette, or directly. However, 15-20% addicts usually inject drugs. Particularly, those who use opiates and morphine inject these drugs. The survey shows that there had been a marked increase in injecting practice since previous survey. On a lifetime measure of injecting, 31% respondents reported ‘ever-injecting’. On average, they would inject four times on a typical injecting day. 70% or more injected with a syringe already used by another addict. Similarly, they passed on the same syringe to next addicts. It can be inferred that...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 2 – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #587 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #587. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Pakistan has suffered greatly in the aftermath of chaotic events in its neighbourhood, for no fault of its own. Or maybe it was our fault that we did not see it coming and did not put-up appropriate defences to stop it. Pakistan Narcotics Board was set up in 1957 to fulfill our obligation under the International Opium Convention of 1925. It comprised of representatives from provincial governments and some federal ministries. Pakistan Narcotics Control Board – PNCB was established in 1973 in response to UN Convention on Narcotics Control, with the mandate to combat narcotics in the cou...

Drug Abuse in Pakistan 1 – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #586 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #586. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Drug abuse is a worldwide problem. It is a serious problem in Pakistan also. However, for some time, we do not hear about it in the media and official circles. It looks like it is being underplayed for some reason. The problem nevertheless exists and has a growing trend. I shall dedicate this blog series for update on this important issue. The first part is about the background of drug use/abuse in Pakistan. Addiction of opium was long recognized by the government, and it issued licenses for selling opium. The licensed shops received their supplies from the government and sold it to a...

Saving Our Self – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #585 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #585. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Winter is the time for reminiscences, old memories, poetry, music, heaters, or more recently, inverters. It is a time for self-appraisals, insights, thinking, and contemplating. In the long, solitary nights, our focus invariably turns to our own self. Everything else emanates from and connects with ‘Our Self’. Let me present a beautiful poem by the famous Mary Oliver to set the scene. THE JOURNEY One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “M...

Us and Ourselves – Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #584 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans’ Blog Post #584. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Long time back, I met a person who had published a collection of his poetry; regular, romantic kind. The gentleman himself was on the other side of middle-age, sported a long beard and was a religious person. I was young and brash (and stupid) and asked him why he was writing poetry because he did not even look like a poet. He calmly replied that first the person had to be good; only then he would be able to do good things, be it poetry or else. I had no reply to that. Today, we use the term ‘holistic’ in many situations. We say that the hiring process should be holistic, we say professional ...