Swiss pharma company Novartis will evaluate India to scale up its manufacturing capabilities and technology advancements, in future, if needed, said Vas Narasimhan, M.D., global Chief Executive Officer of Novartis.
India is amongst a handful of countries in the world that have a broad Novartis footprint covering early research, drug development, technical operations, business services, and commercial operations.
The company has invested over $300 million in the last 5 years in India. Novartis’ portfolio in India has both innovative and established medicines in the specialties of cardiovascular, eye care, immunology, metabolic, neuroscience, oncology, respiratory, and organ transplant.
Narasimhan said, “Novartis is currently conducting over 100 clinical trials involving over 3000-4000 patients in India. Earlier, it used to be very difficult to get clinical trial approvals in India; now that a new policy allows for a much more streamlined approach, it’s actually speeding up clinical trials.
“We are taking a global data science approach. We continue to also aspire to build a kind of robust global network of talent within data science, with the idea of being a pure play innovative medicines company.”
He added that Novartis is looking at how to use generative Artificial intelligence in its Research & Development.