It started with a pair of gloves, a lab coat, and a quiet sense of curiosity. The air was cold and clean, the kind that clings to your clothes in sterile environments. Through the Warehouse, buzzing Production area, and the Packaging unit, I stood in front of the Quality Control (QC) lab at Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Pune, feeling like a character in a story I had only read the preface to. Until that point, my knowledge of QC was limited to heavy theory books. But now I wasn’t just an intern, I was a witness to the science that keeps millions of people healthy every day.
As the doors slid open, the first thing that struck me was the silence. The room wasn’t silent; it carried the steady rhythm of concentration. Analysts in cleanroom lab coats moved swiftly but deliberately, pipettes in hand, eyes locked on beakers, spectrophotometers, and computer screens. The scent of ethanol and solvents in the air, something which would grow on me, all signaled that I had stepped far away from the classroom and deep into the real world of pharmaceutical manufacturing. After the safety briefing and an overview of GMP, I received an SOP and the note: “You’ll be with the HPLC team today.”
Walking Into QC for the First Time
HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) was one of those techniques that had always sounded too complex to grasp completely. But here, it was just another daily tool. I watched an analyst prepare a sample solution with practiced ease, injecting it into the HPLC system to separate and quantify the drug’s active ingredient and potential impurities.
The screen lit up with peaks, each representing a component in the sample. “See this?” He said, pointing to a sharp, symmetrical peak. “That’s our API. Retention time is perfect. Now let’s check the area under the curve.”
What amazed me was how even the tiniest shift in that peak could alter batch approval decisions. I asked how they dealt with inconsistencies, and he smiled, “We don’t deal with inconsistencies, we investigate them.” That mindset stuck with me. Every deviation had to be justified. Every result had to be reproducible. It wasn’t just testing, it was trust-building.
But what the textbooks never told me was how physically demanding QC could be. There were days when we prepared and tested samples for six to seven hours at a stretch, standing the entire time, and the only time we paused was to wait for the instruments to finish their run. Otherwise, it was constant motion, rinsing glassware, weighing samples, checking documentation, setting up equipment, and darting across the lab for reagents and measuring cylinders.
By the end of the first few days, my legs were sore, something I’d never expected from a lab-based internship. My smartwatch even tracked over 10,000 steps a day, and that was just inside the lab!
What I realized was that patience was just as critical as precision. One error in weighing a standard or missing a filtration step could mean starting over completely. Every action had to be deliberate. Even washing glassware was treated with care. I also witnessed the environmental monitoring team doing regular swab and air sampling checks in the lab, ensuring total safety from microbial contamination. QC goes beyond testing; it safeguards the entire ecosystem of pharmaceutical manufacturing.
A Routine That Was Anything but Routine
Over the next few days, I rotated through various testing protocols, dissolution, UV-spectrophotometry, water content analysis using Karl Fischer titration, and stability sample checks. Each had its own SOP, calibration curve, and documentation process. At first, I thought the repetition might dull the experience, but it wasn’t. It only made me love the work increasingly! This meant to me that “routine” in pharma never means unimportant or repetitive; everything is consequential and necessary.
Not Just Learning, but Unlearning Too
There’s a certain rigidity we develop as students; we’re taught there’s one correct answer, one method, one protocol. But in the real world, I learned the opposite. For instance, instead of just assuming failures and errors in performance, a full-scale investigation is important. Adopting a problem-solver’s mindset completely reshaped how I approached lab work. It wasn’t about memorizing steps. It was about asking the right questions and digging deeper when things didn’t add up.
Where It All Came Together
One afternoon, I observed a batch of freshly manufactured tablets being packed. I saw the raw materials being tested in QC, observed the formulation being optimized in R&D, saw the production of those tablets, and watched the final product being tested again before release.
And at that moment, I realized something powerful: Every medicine on the shelf carries a story of thousands of decisions, calculations, checks, and human effort. What seems like just a 500 mg tablet is the result of months, or even years, of collaboration across departments.
This internship wasn’t just a line on my resume; it was a transformation. I entered, unsure, excited, and a little nervous. I left with clarity, confidence, and a genuine curiosity for pharmaceutical quality and research. I now understand what it means to uphold quality, not just comply with it. I’ve seen how formulation is more than just mixing chemicals; it’s about designing a product that works, stays stable, and truly helps people. And most importantly, I’ve learned that science, when done right, has the power to touch lives, silently, consistently, and meaningfully.
Nupur Tilekar
(Final Year B. Pharm)