The medicines development workforce has grown to be a multidisciplinary, interprofessional global body of broadly qualified graduate professionals working with and around the biopharmaceutical industry. To satisfy their demands of fitness for work, they must meet the changes and challenges of a rapidly developing technological and competitive field. This has generated a need for a harmonised, mutually recognised vocational programme of competencies and capabilities, based on an academic foundation, which for the adult learners in medicines development goes above and beyond their original medical and scientific specialisms. This review proposes that professional competencies and capabilities developed in pharmaceutical medicine, a specialty concerned with the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring, and commercialisation of medicines and medical products, provides a comprehensive solution for the educational needs in medicines development. To justify this proposition, it summarises the 60-year evolution of education and training in pharmaceutical medicine. It demonstrates how expanding the pharmaceutical medicine syllabus has aligned it with almost every aspect of the development process of modern medicines. This perspective proposes a vision for the future where pharmaceutical medicine professional competencies and capabilities fill the educational void for the medicines development workforce. This is suggested to pave the career path that supports the professional identity of physicians, scientists, and other professionals working to develop medicines. © The Author(s) 2025.
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