Novo Nordisk relocates data management from Singapore to India
management centre to India after closing down the operation in
Singapore, where it had been previously run for many years.
The company's data management exit from Singapore was due to the closing of its clinical development centre in the country, which has now moved to Beijing, on the heels of the head of the team who wanted to make the move. "Now that we no longer have a clinical development centre in Singapore we decided to move the data management function to India where we feel there is more experience in this field," company spokesperson Anne Prener told BioPharma-Reporter.com. The Danish biopharma giant already has an office in Bangalore, where the centre will now be located. Until now the firm only had sales and marketing staff located at this site, along with a small team conducting data management for local clinical trials. "We are currently running a number of trials in India," said Prener. Soon, however, data management for Novo's global trials from 60 countries across the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), Africa and Latin America will be done from this new location. Recruitment is underway now for around 20 new staff at the site, as the company's data management employees at the former site in Singapore did not relocate. At this point, the company has no further expansion plans in India, said Prener. Meanwhile, Novo's existing relationship with Indian IT service firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) remains unchanged, she said. TCS has been working with the company in India for a number of years assisting the company with the data management of its clinical trials run in India, on an "overflow basis." Novo Nordisk is one of a growing number of biopharma firms who have been actively implementing an outsourcing strategy as a cost-cutting and time saving measure and also has number of other such agreements in place in India.
