Cognizant, Pfizer in BPO pact

Cognizant Technology Services (Cognizant) has ventured into the BPO space through a multi-year relationship with Pfizer Global Research & Development (PGRD) to provide clinical data management and biometrics services.

Cognizant will open its first facility in six months in Mumbai and hire an initial 90 personnel for the deployment of the high-end services to PGRD's affiliate in India.

The bulk of those hired will be bachelors and masters in pharmacy, statistics and analytics. The services would be rendered from PGRD's facility in Mumbai initially and then moved to Cognizant's leased facility.

Pfizer discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets leading prescription medicines for humans and animals and many of the world's known consumer brands. The company has three business segments: health care, animal health and consumer health care.

According to a company release, this relationship allows Pfizer to capture the cost-productivity advantage India offers.

The Pfizer India biometrics division has been providing data capture, data management, statistics and programming services for its parent's Phase I, II, III global trials for seven years.

"Cognizant has extensive experience in life sciences including clinical trial study set-up and validation and data management that are compliant with international standards of good clinical practices (GCP) as defined by the FDA," said Hocine Sidi Said, country manager, Pfizer India, in a company release.

"Cognizant's understanding of strategic pharmaceutical business processes and leadership position in the IT services segment of health care and life-sciences industry were key factors in Pfizer's decision to select Cognizant as the Company's preferred provider for their Business Process Outsourcing initiative," said Lakshmi Narayanan, president and CEO of Cognizant in the release.

Cognizant is a provider of IT services focused on delivering strategic information technology solutions that address the complex business needs of its clients, Cognizant provides applications management, development, integration, and re-engineering, infrastructure management, business process outsourcing, and a number of related services such as enterprise consulting, technology architecture, program management and change management through its onsite/offshore outsourcing model.