Pharma interview questions and answers – For Formulation production and R&D jobs:

Pharma interview notes:

We have already provided department wise pharma interview question and answers. Also provided qualifying exam papers for interview. Here we covered some more interview Q&A. these notes are also useful for interview. We are dedicated to provide some more interview questions as shown below in the near future. We also provide departmental wise interview notes continuously. Following Q&A are belongs to pharmaceutics which are useful for the production and R&D jobs.

What is corrosion?

It is a metal deterioration process. Due to chemical or chemical reactions or environmental interactions with surface metal, metal surface is gradually destructed. It is an unwanted process. Corrosion leads to machinery damage, product contamination and replacement of damaged machinery increase economic burden to the plant. Corrosion should be avoided by taking preventive measures.

What is passivation?

It is a procedure which makes the stainless steel more rust resistant by reducing the chemical reactivity of surface. Usually citric acid or nitric acid is used to do this process. It removes the free iron from the stainless steel surface. A protective oxide layer will be formed with inert in nature. This layer will less likely react with chemicals or air in the environment. If more layer is formed It will more resistant to corrosion less reactivity with chemicals.

What is the difference between dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures?

These are the temperatures useful to find the state of humid air.

The dry bulb temperature and wet bulb temperature is known as “air temperature” and “adiabatic saturation temperature” respectively.

Dry bulb temperature measured using a thermometer, bulb of the thermometer will be exposed freely in the air. While measuring the wet bulb temperature, bulb will be wrapped in a wet muslin cloth.

Pharma interview notes

What are azeotropes?

Azeotropes are also known as constant boiling mixtures. It is a mixture of liquids that act as a pure liquid having a constant boiling point. The boiling point may be higher or lower than individual component in the mixture’s boiling point. Azeotropes contains same composition of components in both liquid and vapour phase.

For eg:

water boiling temperature : 100 0C,

Ethanol boiling point : 78.3 0C

When a mixture of liquid composed 95% water and 5% ethanol by volume. This azeotrophic mixture will constantly boil at 78.2 0C. By using boiling method or simple distillation, we can not separate water and ethanol from this azeotrophic mixture.

If the mixture contains two liquids, is known as binary azeotropes. If it contains three liquids, it is known as ternary azeotropes.

Mention a few methods to enhance the solubility of poorly soluble drugs?

Various methods are used to enhance the drug solubility are as follows

– Particle size reduction

– Drug salt formation

– Solid dispersion

– Preparing Nano suspension

– Using surfactants

What is lyophilisation?

It is also known as freeze drying technique. In involves following steps

– Freezing: In this step, sterilised partially stoppered containers (drug+ excipients+ solvent) placed in the  freeze drying chamber.

-Primary drying(Sublimation): To sublimate water, pressure is reduced and heat increased. Ice crystals directly converted to vapour bypassing the liquid state. 95% water removed in this phase.

-Secondary drying (Desorption): Remaining bounded water removed in this phase. Temperature is increased more than the primary drying temperature. Then the vacuum is broken and filled with inert gas and sealed.   

This technique is used to preserve the biodegradable materials.

pharma interview notes which are not covered in the previous posts.
What is annealing?

Annealing is also known as slow freezing. When some compounds (ex. Amorphous compounds like mannitol) will not complete crystals. In this case, annealing is used. After forming the crystals, temperature is cycled. (Like -50 C to -30 C for few hours then back to -50 C). This process helps to form larger crystals.

What is osmosis?

It is a phenomenon. When dilute solution and concentrated solution separated by a semipermeable membrane. The  solvent passes from dilute solution to concentrated solution. This pressure is known as osmotic pressure.

Any fluid is injected into the body should be isotonic in nature. If hypertonic fluid injected into the body, it crenation of blood cells. If hypotonic fluid injected into the body, solvent passes in to blood cells causes haemolysis.

Mention a few solubility terms?

Very soluble- 1 part of solute soluble in less than 1 part of solvent

Freely soluble  -1 part of solute soluble in 1-10 parts of solvent

Soluble – 1 part of solute soluble in 10-30 parts of solvent

Sparingly soluble – 1 part of solute soluble in 30-100 parts of solvent

Slightly soluble – 1 part of solute soluble in 100 -1000 parts of solvent

Very slightly soluble – 1 part of solute soluble in 1000-10000 parts of solvent

Practically insoluble – 1 part of solute soluble in more than 10000 parts of solvent

Related: Clinical trials overview

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Job opportunities after M Pharm Pharmacology -Part 3

This is the continuation of m pharm pharmacology jobs part 2

Click here to view the part 2

6. Online publisher companies:

These types of jobs also available for every filed of pharmacy. Pharmacology graduates work for the clinical, medical and life sciences related journals. After receiving a few manuscripts per day, you have to correct, edit, accept or reject the manuscript for publishing. It is a systematic process, if you are doing you may be promoted to curator to reviewer(the next level of designation). This is a desktop job.

Other conference conducting companies are also available. Usually the same company work as an online publisher along with conducting the conferences. These two are interlinked. You are aware of conferences like IPC(Indian Pharmaceutical Congress), World Pharma Congress etc. (Probably you are already attended some conference in your academics). M Pharmacy graduates are recruited to co-ordinate and manage the conferences, summits. Work is inviting the related scientists, professors and scientific personnel’s through mails and calls. If you worked well, finishing the targets effectively and went to next level like conference co-ordinator(Team Leader), you may go to foreign countries (where your conference is scheduled like newzeland, Australia etc)  a few days for coordinating the conference. Communication, management skills are important for this type of job. The working hours will be a little change depend upon which country conference you are working for.  Here also there is a chance of bulk recruitment drive if they need work force. If you need any further guidance ask your questions in the comment box or contact us through mail.

 7) CDM:

            M pharm pharmacology jobs are available in CDM. CDM is known as Clinical Data Management. It deals with the clinical data by applying various computer based applications. It involves collecting, processing , cleaning and management of subject or clinical trial data according to the project specific guidelines. It usually contains 3 phases like startup, conduct and close out phase. It starts from crf@ and database design to database lock.

Coming to M pharm pharmacology jobs, Jr. Clinical Data Associate (Jr. CDA) designated vacancies are available for freshers. You can learn the CDM course or you can directly face the interview without doing any additional course after M pharm. You should have the good knowledge on clinical trials and its phases.Every sponsor company will not have this CDM department on their own or they will outsource their work to Pharmaceutical service providing IT companies. If the sponsor have more stringent regulatory products in the market or they are focusing on new drug applications they have their own teams. Even other M pharm graduates can also try for this jobs, but pharmacology graduates are preferred.  

@ CRF is known as Clinical Report Form, It is essential for recording the clinical trial data. Paper CRF(Manual) or eCRF(electronic)s are types of CRFs.

 8) Pharmacovigilance:

            It deals with the adverse reactions and helps to improve the patient care and public safety in relation to the use of drugs. This concept(Drug safety and adverse drug reaction reporting) was more concentrated from thalidomide disaster@@ onwards(after 1961). Two types of ADR reporting is done. They are spontaneous reporting and mandatory reporting.

Coming to the m pharm pharmacology jobs, Drug Safety Associate designated vacancies are available. Job profile includes extracting  and submitting the ICSRs(Individual Case Safety Reports), Literature surveillance of ADRs, Signal detection(is known as reporting the casual association of drug with adverse event, which is not clearly reported previously), preparing the PSURs(Periodic Safety Update Reports). These are all regulatory requirements for detecting, assessing and preventing the adverse reactions of drugs to improve patient safety. Different types of software tools are used in pharmacovigilance. E.g Vigi flow, ARISg, Argus, Vigibase etc. These tools are preferred based the sponsor’s marketed product approved regulatory authority. Like ARISg is mostly used by drug manufacturers in Europe, Argus is used by drug manufacturer in USA and VigiFlow is used by national pharmacovigilance centres of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring. You can learn the pharmacovigilance course otherwise you can directly try for the interview. Although other m pharmacy graduates are eligible for this job, pharmacology graduates are preferred for this job.

@@Thalidomide is a teratogen, it is used to prevent morning sickness during pregnancy in nearly 40 countries. It caused birth defects (phocomelia) in thousands of babies(more 10,000 birth defects in Germany itself).

Thalidomide tragedy

Conclusion:

These are the possible job opportunities after m pharm pharmacology. Choosing a correct job is depends upon your interest and your priorities only. Every type of above mentioned fields have their own advantages and disadvantages. It may include form salary, career growth in future, work shift timings etc. Please try to get a job which fits you well. Doing your interested job gives you satisfaction. I hope this information will help to comparing and selecting the suitable job for our pharmacology graduates.

I have seen some practical cases in my life, some people will join in one of the above mentioned filed. Getting 1or 2 years experience, they may shift to another filed which they are actually interested. It  will not only waste the time but also their career, because the working experience will not be considered for the second field, again it will start from zero experience and growth. It will happens because of lack of knowledge related to job opportunities. So carefully select your first job and build your career successfully.

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