The Vice Chancellor of Chrisland University Abeokuta, Prof. Chinedum Peace Babalola has opined that disruptive innovation in the Pharmacy profession requires a concerted effort.

According to Prof. Babalola, “a disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market-leading firms, products, and alliances.

“Disruptive innovations affect all industries, including associations of health professionals. To me, it is thinking outside the box.”

She noted that a lot of inventions have emerged over the years which have improved the way people do things and live their lives, notable among which are: UBER, Amazon, Use of drones, Alternative energy, Blood donation services, Mobile and so on.

She added that disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing market-leading companies, noting that the business environment of market leaders do not allow them to pursue disruptive innovations when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition).

Prof. Babalola said, “A disruptive process can take longer to develop than by the conventional approach and the risk associated to it is higher than the other more incremental or evolutionary forms of innovations, but once it is deployed in the market, it achieves a much faster penetration and higher degree of impact on the established markets.

She further credited technology for most of the disruptions seen in various industries today and the Pharmacy profession has not been left out.

Prof. Babalola identified the LifeBank which is a platform that makes blood available when and where it is needed in Nigeria as one of the disruptions in the industry. Others are 3D Printing for organ transplants, Nanotechnology, Biomechanics; Drugstoc which helps licensed pharmacies, hospitals, and medical professionals order pharmaceutical products directly from officially accredited distributors; Kangpe - an interactive platform which encourages users to ask real doctors their health questions and get answers in less than 10 minutes, among several others.

She added that driving innovative disruption in the Pharmacy profession all hands must be on deck and everyone must be ready to play their role from the Government to the academia, students of pharmacy, producers and distributors and the general public.

Prof. Peace Babalola is the current Vice Chancellor of Chrisland University and a Professor of Pharmacy, her research interests focus on drug analysis, PK/PD Pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics, pharmaceutical analysis and bioethics.