Diploma in Pharmaceutical Sciences
The Diploma in Pharmaceutical Sciences (DPHM) programme is designed to allow you to gain a broad foundation in the Pharmaceutical Sciences, to participate in the pharmaceutical and pharmacy sector. The three-year diploma programme prepares students for a career in retail and hospital pharmacy, production, control, development and distribution sectors of the pharmaceutical industry, or for further education in the pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacy or other disciplines.
Four options for specialisation are offered in the DPHM programme:
- Pharmaceutical Science
- Complementary and Alternative Medicine
- Pharmaceutical Logistics
- Medicinal Chemistry
The Pharmaceutical Science option provides you with the opportunity to prepare for the retail/hospital pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry, and specialisation in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine option, to participate in the increasingly important alternative medicine sector. While the Pharmaceutical Logistics option prepares you for pharmaceutical supply chain and distribution, the Medicinal Chemistry option will enable you to contribute to the field of drug discovery.
(1) Pharmaceutical Science
The healthcare sector in Singapore is a growth industry. Knowing how medicines work provides a coherent approach to build a career in the healthcare service sector.
Building upon the necessary abilities and skills to appreciate life processes, the modules that define this specialisation will enhance your understanding of the role of medicines in society so that you will be better able to fit into the various pharmaceutical service sectors. You will be able to participate in the knowledge intensive pharmaceutical industry; from the marketing of medicines, a career in the medicine dispensing community to ancillary clinical research support.
(2) Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Complementary and Alternative Medicines which include Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) are becoming extremely popular. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health of the United States established the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. In Singapore, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has started offering a double degree in Biomedical Science and TCM. The Ministry of Health regulates Traditional and Complementary Medicines under its Health Regulations Division.
Lifestyle changes from rising affluence are driving the alternative lifestyle industry which includes the marketing of nutraceuticals and the provision of alternative therapies for health and wellness. This specialisation option prepares you with an appreciation of medication management to produce positive health-outcomes from the perspectives of both western medicine and alternative traditions, providing a strong foundation to engage this growth sector.
(3) Pharmaceutical Logistics
As supply chain becomes more refined and integrated, its management has an even greater impact on the bottom line particularly for the pharmaceutical industry. As the requirements for handling pharmaceuticals to maintain their shelf-life is stringent, every effort allocated to service and delivery must be maximized. When it comes to warehousing, transportation, and distribution costs, pharmaceutical companies are discovering that the shortest path to higher returns is through employing staff trained not only in supply chain management, but with a strong background in the pharmaceutical sciences. The recommended modules for this specialisation option will equip you with a synergistic understanding of pharmaceutical - supply chain management to support the industry.
(4) Medical Chemistry
The pharmaceutical industry continues to deal with challenges to improve productivity in getting new drugs to the market. The industry has to discover and develop innovative medicines for a wide range of diseases. Medicinal chemistry is at the forefront of innovation, blending synthetic chemistry, molecular modelling, computational biology, structural genomics, and pharmacology to discover and design new drugs, and investigate their interaction at the molecular, cellular, and whole-animal level.
The modules that support this specialisation option encompass the practical aspects of Medicinal Chemistry, which will provide you with a strong grounding in this interdisciplinary science, to handle the daily problems faced by the medicinal chemist, when dealing with drug discovery/identification methodologies, and optimising pharmaceutical properties by means of ultimate chemical modifications.
The course will equip you with:
- A pharmaceutical science foundation
- An introduction to the discipline of pharmacy, from drug discovery and development, the science of compounding and dispensing drugs, regulatory approval to pharmacy practice
- An appreciation of complementary and alternative medicine
- An understanding of the applications of supply chain management in the pharmaceutical industry
- A strong knowledge discipline in medicinal chemistry
- A rigorous introduction to major technological advances and emerging fields
- An appreciation of the pharmaceutical industry, its practices and societal considerations
- Entrepreneurial knowledge of how pharmaceutical companies operate
In addition, the PBL approach to education will equip you with life-long learning skills, enabling you to apply and adapt your training according to circumstance, build on the foundations you acquired as a student, hence making you a real knowledge practitioner long after graduation.
As a pharmaceutical science graduate, you will be able to find employment in scientific and biomedical research careers, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic development. Opportunities are also available in the healthcare sector, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. This programme prepares graduates with clinical research and regulatory affairs knowledge that are valuable to contract research organisations, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Technical knowledge about how medicines are regulated will allow more entrepreneurial graduates to value add to the growing alternative medicine industry.
While a knowledge base in pharmaceutical logistics prepares graduates for supply chain and distribution in the pharmaceutical industry, a firm grounding in organic chemistry enables graduates to contribute to drug discovery research. The programme is also actively engaged in projects related to nutraceutical research and functional food development due to current interest in this growth area.
This opens up opportunities for you to pursue your studies at universities, both locally and abroad, in the pharmaceutical sciences or other disciplines, as the programme equips the graduate with a broad science foundation.
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