AstraZeneca sets up clinical data and insights division in India

Drug firm AstraZeneca on Wednesday said it has launched a clinical data and insights division in India for data-related management of its clinical trials.

The Bengaluru-based clinical data and insights (CDI) division is a critical advancement to support a growing global portfolio and build on internal data expertise, the drug firm said in a statement.

The CDI division works across therapy areas and portfolios, supporting early and late-stage clinical programmes from Phase 1 to Phase 3, with an integrated end-to-end approach for clinical data, analytics, insights and risk management, it added.

Currently, a 30-member team, the division is expected to grow to over 100 members by 2022, the drug firm said.

"India has seen a constant uptick in investment in areas such as business services, engineering, digital, IT, R&D and product development from global Fortune-500 companies.

AstraZeneca in India is no different since its inception, AstraZeneca India has supported the global organisation with various services spanning IT, business services and R&D from our centres in Chennai and Bengaluru, on transformative projects," AstraZeneca India Managing Director Siva Padmanabhan said.

AstraZeneca's decision to set up the CDI division in India is only a natural progression of this to further capitalise on the extensive talent pool in the country, he added.

At present, the drug maker's CDI footprint includes over 400 employees and around 700 data management professionals in vendor partnerships across six countries.

"Clinical data and insight solutions enable pharmaceutical organisations such as ours to gain in-depth visibility into the patient's journey by extracting actionable insights from disparate data sources.

The establishment of the CDI division in India is key to our strategic vision of being industry leaders in this space," AstraZeneca Vice President, Global Head of Clinical Data & Insights Natalie Fishburn said.