The Hindu Business Line : Tech firms step up pharma presence

The opportunities
The drug testing phase covers the entire life cycle process, including reporting on minor side effects such as nausea, which could even be fatal.
Adverse event reporting relates to tracking changes in health or side effects that occurs in a person who participates in a clinical trial.
The litigation case support process involves processing documents ranging from 500 to over 5,000 for extracting relevant information.

V. Rishi Kumar

Advertisement

Hyderabad, July 14 Technology firms Satyam and Patni, Cognizant, and several other companies offering drug discovery and research services are stepping up presence in pharma vigilance, drug safety and ‘adverse event’ reporting.

An interaction with some of the tech firms working for global healthcare , pharma majors shows that this is emerging as one of the fastest-growing segments, wherein apart from technology experts, doctors, pharmacists and paramedics are being inducted.

The Senior Vice-President and Head of Patni BPO, Mr Sanjiv Kapur, told Business Line that adverse event case processing is a growing service stream. Increasing costs of healthcare and managing ageing population in the US and the UK are fuelling long-term care management, which is now part of knowledge process outsourcing.

“This is a fairly young but rapidly growing segment of KPO where apart from technologists, we are inducting doctors, pharmacists and even nurses who bring understanding of medicare processes and help in extending services,” Mr Kapur said.

What’s adverse event reporting?

Adverse event reporting relates to tracking changes in health or side effects that occurs in a person who participates in a clinical trial while he is receiving treatment or within specified period. This is a computerised information database designed to support Food and Drug Administration in safety surveillance.

During the drug testing phase, the work covers the entire life cycle process, including reporting on minor side effects such as nausea, which could even be fatal, he said.

The Practice Leader, Life Sciences, Cognizant, Mr J. Sairamkumar, said adverse reporting has matured and relies on advanced technology tools to integrate safety data gathered from around the world. By running complex analytical data, companies identify trends in safety data that may need further analysis.

Industry Concerns

According to Mr Sairamkumar, the industry concerns in pharmacovigilance include spiralling costs of adverse events process execution and support, lack of globally accepted formats and scarcity of qualified professionals to support this area.

IT spending in life sciences industry, which was $17.1 billion in 2004, is likely to reach $49.30 billion. Drug safety is listed as a front concern for 2008 for life sciences organisations. Cognizant has seen significant spike in opportunities in this area in the last three years, Mr Sairamkumar explained.

The Business Head, Life Sciences, Satyam BPO, Mr Pradeep Advani, said while the broader technology support for the life sciences is ever increasing business opportunity, a few areas within life sciences such as drug safety, litigation case process and patent related issues are where companies like Satyam have stepped up presence.

“We work with two of the three largest firms. For instance, the litigation case support process involves processing documents ranging from 500 to over 5,000 for extracting relevant information. This forms crucial input for pharma companies in their global business,” Mr Advani said.

Taratec buy

Mr Kapur said Patni acquired New Jersey-based Taratec, a life sciences consulting firm, and has created a larger dedicated team in Noida to support clients in the US with a large ageing populace to support in adverse event reporting.

While Patni recently announced the launch of Patni Adept, a new service to streamline drug safety reporting, Satyam BPO is in the process of expanding its presence in life sciences. While large MNCs like Accenture play a big role in life sciences, Cognizant believes there is big upside in this area with India advantage.

Adverse event reporting and generation of data is one of the most closely watched, addressed areas in pharmaceutical regulations, Mr Sairamkumar said.

Related Stories:
Synygy India targets pharma sector
Microsoft to support SMEs in pharma cluster

More Stories on : Pharmaceuticals | Software

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page