Pharmacy must protect its scientific identity

When I spoke with Jayne Lawrence, former chief scientist of the then Royal Pharmaceutical Society, about the future of pharmacy, our conversation ranged across independent prescribing, artificial intelligence (AI), genomics, real-world evidence, precision medicine and increasingly clinical models of care. These developments are exciting and necessary. However, one concern kept returning: as pharmacy evolves, could the profession unintentionally drift away from one of its greatest historical strengths: its scientific foundation?

Pharmacy has always occupied a unique position within healthcare. Pharmacists are trained to understand both the patient and the medicine. This means not only how medicines are prescribed and used, but also how they are designed, metabolised and optimised.

This scientific identity has enabled pharmacists to contribute across a range of areas, including research, industry, public health and clinical practice alike.

Yet there is increasing concern across academia and pharmaceutical science that this breadth is narrowing.

As one of the UK’s leading voices in pharmaceutical science, Lawrence believes that preserving this scientific identity is essential to the future of the profession.

Pharmacy research begins with curiosity

Lawrence describes research as a mindset rooted in curiosity, problem solving and persistence. Research often begins — she argues — with noticing problems that others overlook.

This is particularly relevant to pharmacy professionals who encounter real-world challenges every day. Pharmacists working in every sector can identify gaps in medicines use, adherence, formulation design and patient safety. Front-line clinicians can be important drivers of translational innovation because they directly observe unmet healthcare needs and system inefficiencies^​1​.

Lawrence was clear that pharmacy professionals should not underestimate the value of these observations. In her view, some of the most meaningful innovations emerge when practitioners collaborate with scientists, engineers or academic researchers to solve practical healthcare problems. Interdisciplinary collaboration is increasingly recognised as a critical driver of pharmaceutical innovation and translational medicine^​2​.

She was also clear that research participation rarely happens by simply “finding spare time”. Like any meaningful professional development activity, research requires deliberate prioritisation. Evidence suggests that protected research time, institutional support and collaborative culture are major determinants of clinician research engagement^​3​.

The danger of losing the science from pharmacy

In our conversation, Lawrence returned repeatedly to the increasing dominance of clinically focused curricula. While the expansion of prescribing and patient-facing responsibilities is important, she is concerned that the scientific depth underpinning pharmacy training may gradually be eroded.

This matters because pharmacy’s distinctive contribution to healthcare lies precisely in the integration of science and clinical practice. Pharmaceutical science is not separate from patient care — it underpins it. Understanding pharmacokinetics, formulation science, drug delivery systems, pharmacogenomics and medicinal chemistry allows pharmacists to think critically about how medicines behave in different patients and why therapies succeed or fail^​4​.

The International Pharmaceutical Federation has repeatedly emphasised that future pharmacists must maintain strong scientific competencies, alongside clinical and professional skills, to adapt to emerging healthcare technologies and therapeutic innovation^​5​.

Lawrence’s warning is that if pharmacy becomes purely clinically orientated, the profession risks losing the very expertise that makes it uniquely valuable. Pharmacists are not simply medicine suppliers or prescribers — they are medicine scientists embedded within healthcare systems.

This issue may be particularly important for the future pharmaceutical industry workforce. The UK life sciences sector increasingly relies on multidisciplinary teams working across biotechnology, advanced therapeutics, drug delivery systems and precision medicine^​6​. However, concerns remain that many pharmacy graduates are insufficiently exposed to relevant scientific fields during undergraduate training.

At the same time, small- and medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprises continue to grow across the UK innovation ecosystem. These companies often recruit scientists with strong technical backgrounds but limited understanding of patient-centred medicines optimisation. Pharmacists could fill this gap exceptionally well if they are adequately prepared and encouraged to do so.

One example can be seen in the rapid development of weight-management medicines and technologies. The current GLP-1 era is not only a clinical story about prescribing and access — it is also a pharmaceutical science story about molecular design, formulation, drug delivery, stability, storage, tolerability and patient acceptability. GLP-1 receptor agonists act by increasing insulin secretion, reducing glucagon and delaying gastric emptying, but the next wave of innovation is moving beyond single-target injectable products towards dual and triple agonists, oral peptide and small-molecule formulations, as well as non-systemic device-based approaches^​7,8​.

For example, oral semaglutide and oral GLP-1 receptor agonists raise important formulation questions around bioavailability, gastrointestinal stability and real-world adherence, while hydrogel-based weight-management technologies illustrate how material science and dosage-form design can create therapeutic effects without a conventional systemic drug^​7–9​.

Without scientific grounding, pharmacists may be able to prescribe future medicines, but they will be less prepared to understand how those medicines were designed, why their formulation matters and how pharmaceutical innovation can be translated safely into patient care.

AI, precision medicine and the future of pharmaceutical research

When we turned to AI, Lawrence’s perspective was both optimistic and cautious. AI is already reshaping pharmaceutical research^​10​.

AI can accelerate scientific discovery, identify patterns in complex datasets and support more personalised therapeutic approaches. Nevertheless, data quality, interpretability and contextual understanding remain major limitations^​11​. AI systems are only as reliable as the data used to train them, while healthcare datasets frequently lack critical contextual variables, including comorbidities, behavioural factors, herbal medicine use and social determinants of health^​12​.

She also raised a consideration that can be overlooked in discussions about AI: its environmental cost. Large-scale computational models require substantial energy consumption and infrastructure resources^​13​. As healthcare systems increasingly focus on sustainability, the environmental implications of AI-driven healthcare innovation should not be ignored.

Despite these concerns, the convergence of AI, pharmacogenomics and precision medicine may represent one of the most important opportunities for pharmacy research in decades. Precision medicine aims to tailor therapies according to individual variability in genes, environment and lifestyle^​14​. Pharmacists are well placed to contribute because medicines optimisation already sits at the centre of pharmacy practice.

However, precision medicine also requires pharmacists who understand the underlying science. Technology alone is not enough. Scientific understanding remains essential.

Collaboration must return to the centre of pharmacy science

Another point Lawrence returned to was the relationship between academia, industry and professional practice. Historically, pharmacists in different sectors interacted regularly through conferences, collaborative networks and professional communities. These interactions often generated new ideas, partnerships and translational opportunities.

Today, despite unprecedented digital communication tools, meaningful scientific interaction may be declining. Research increasingly supports the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and professional networking in accelerating scientific innovation^​15​.

Pharmacy cannot advance in isolation. The future of medicines development will depend on collaboration between pharmacists and a wide range of scientists.

Pharmacy needs confidence in its own identity

What stayed with me most from our conversation was Lawrence’s belief that pharmacy should have confidence in its own intellectual identity.

Pharmacists possess a broad training that spans chemistry, biology, therapeutics, formulation science, patient care and public health. Few healthcare professions combine scientific depth with direct patient-facing expertise in the same way^​5​.

This breadth should not be viewed as a weakness or an outdated legacy of older curricula. It is arguably pharmacy’s greatest strategic advantage in an era increasingly shaped by complex therapeutics.

Our conversation reinforced a simple point: the future of pharmacy should not involve choosing between science and clinical care. The profession must continue to embrace both and remain confident that its ability to connect the science of medicines with the care of patients is one of its defining strengths.