The Hindu Business Line : Accenture rides high on life sciences

It's a "perfect storm" in the drug discovery world, says Accenture's Mr Arjun Bedi. As hassled players try to ride it out, companies such as his have happily spotted their role in the storm.

The "storm" is because of the global pharma giants' check on research budgets and the counter-pressure on them to pull ever more therapeutic `rabbits' out of their labs.

Drug majors are chasing new ways of beating cost and timelines, according to Mr Bedi, the US-based Partner, Health & Life Sciences, for Accenture.

Consultancy and outsourcing solutions companies have their "storm" role cut out. With each wonder drug costing an unsustainable $1 billion over a decade, these third parties make a go at cutting 30-40 per cent of the research and development cost, Mr Bedi said.

Bangalore centre

The $16.65-billion Accenture, in October 2005, created a centre of excellence for life sciences in Bangalore.

Life sciences is a key area alongside its dozen-odd verticals ranging from aerospace to retail.

The Bangalore centre, with its smaller siblings in Madrid and Manila, offers IT solutions, clinical trials data management, pharmacovigilance and biostatistics.

"India is (Accenture's) targeted hub of life sciences and the Bangalore centre does the largest (amount) of offshore work," for the company, he told Business Line. It also has 80 per cent of offshore people and "the headcount will continue to grow significantly" from the current several hundreds.

Eighteen of the top 20 global drug majors that are seeking to sharpen research productivity are its clients, making life sciences R&D solutions an area of "hypergrowth."

As regulatory pressures build up, pharmacovigilance looks set for a dramatic growth.

As more and more global companies chant the R&D mantra of "doing more with less,"

"There has been significant growth in our operations in the past three years; business is great," he said, but did not give details. One success story posted on Accenture's Web site says it took over Wyeth's clinical data management systems from April 2003 "and managed an 80 per cent reduction in clinical trial cycle times and a 30 per cent reduction in contracted costs."

In the past five years, lack of investor confidence in some of the top 20 pharma companies eroded $5 billion of their market value.

Indian companies, as they sharpen their R&D, cannot long remain aloof from a similar tightrope walk on innovation, budget and productivity, in his view.

(Already, two top domestic names, Ranbaxy and Dabur, are consulting Accenture, though ostensibly not beyond that.)

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