The Hindu Business Line : Cisco bullish on pharma sector

In an ideal networked pharmaceutical business model, wherein research and outsourcing are on the upswing and where intellectual property protection is key, Web-based collaborative tools and encrypted mails ensure that data remains safe in the virtual world.

Hyderabad , Oct 8

Cisco Systems is bullish on the Indian pharma sector with its range of communication platforms and solutions that help overcome obstacles in clinical development systems and contract centre research.

Mr Suprabhat Chatterjee, National Business Development Manager, Cisco (India and SAARC), said that as India gears up to be a pharmaceutical hub of the world, domestic companies are increasingly waking up to the benefits of Internet protocol communication solutions to increase their operational efficiencies.

Cisco's unified communication solutions enable them to bring innovation into business processes such as billing, purchasing, sales and multi-channel marketing and enhance R&D productivity.

This is done by reducing operational costs and addressing issues such as better exchange of data lodged in an organisation, avoiding duplication in testing and trials and faster time-to-market.

Citing CII numbers, Mr Chatterjee said that the India pharma sector is growing at the rate of 8-9 per cent and is projected to touch $48 billion by 2007.

Such rapid growth has led Indian pharma players to explore newer areas of drug development, thereby promising higher capital investment in the industry.

Large companies in India understand the benefits of technology and the return on investments that these solutions can bring to them. For instance, out of the top players, Vimta Labs, Dr. Reddy's, Ranbaxy, Matrix, Cipla, Aurobindo Pharma, Astra Zeneca, and Apotex India have already deployed Cisco's networking solutions.

Typically, in an ideal networked pharmaceutical business model, wherein research and outsourcing are on the upswing and where intellectual property protection is key, Web-based collaborative tools and encrypted mails ensure that data remains safe in the virtual world.

Citing the case of Vimta Labs, Mr Chatterjee said that Cisco, along with IBM, enabled the company with better information sharing facilities through a convergence communication platform.

Cisco's solutions for pharma companies cover secure extranets for partners, R&D supply chain management, providing e-learning facilities, creating clinical portals and R&D command centres, which have the capability to handle multiple data and information feeds from extranets, portals and intranets.

Citing the Economist Intelligence Unit-Foresight 2020 Study, Mr Chatterjee said in that the next 15 years, healthcare and pharma executives expect to see a lot more collaborative problem solving approach within firms facilitated by technology.

The pharma sector in India is fragmented and small and medium enterprises, in particular, would need to take to new solutions as they integrate and eye the global marketplace, he added.

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