Reliance Life to set up Rs 500 cr data centre

Moving ahead with its plan to become a fully integrated player in the global clinical research space, the Mukesh Ambani promoted Reliance Life Sciences, is setting up a world class clinical data management (CDM) centre at Bangalore. The centre, which will have a team of 100 scientific and software professionals initially, will handle inhouse projects as well as client-based global outsourcing projects. The company's total investment in the CDM centre was not disclosed. Reliance Life sources said that there would be 'substantial' investment in infrastructure and skilled manpower.

However, the industry sources familiar with such projects, estimate that the project would cost around Rs 500 to Rs 600 crore.

"Since Reliance Life Sciences is targeting the global clinical data management outsourcing business, the infrastructure and people requirement will be huge," they said. Reliance Life Sciences, currently a leading player in the Indian clinical research space, will also set up a bioequivalence/bioavailability test laboratory in Bangalore near the new CDM centre. The company is also currently operating a fulfledged animal house and laboratory facilities for pre-clinical studies at the Dhirubhai Ambani Life Sciences Centre at Rabale in Navi Mumbai.

K V Subrahmanian, president and CEO of Reliance Life sciences said that the Bangalore CDM centre will be operational by the year-end. "The data management centre will handle our inhouse projects initially and the operations will be scaled up substantially to undertake projects outsourced by other leading global and domestic companies," he said. India, according to a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group, with its information technology prowess, currently engages in clinical data management (CDM) very significantly.

Several leading multinational pharma companies have now drawn up plans to conduct almost the full range of CDM tasks, ranging from data entry to interactive-voice response-system (IVRS) programming and from help desk support to statistics. The global drug major GSK operates one of its largest clinical data management centre at Bangalore at present. Reliance Life Sciences (RLS), a millennium initiative of the Reliance Group, had set up facilities in cell biology in Mumbai and started India's pioneering works in embryonic stem cell research.

Currently, it has cell biology research to focus on stem cells and tissue engineering covering embryonic stem cells, haematopoietic stem cells, skin cells, tissue engineering, genetics and molecular diagnostics. Its facility at Jamnagar focuses on plant biotechnology projects.