IMS Partners with Tata Consultancy, Offering Outsourcing Services to Pharmas

Healthcare analytics and data firm, IMS has signed a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services in India in order to develop an offshore delivery site in the country. The destination has the prime objective of offering outsourced analytics services to shore up support for pharmaceutical firms and their marketing, sales and managed markets activities, reports research-live.com

David Carlucci, CEO of IMS said in a statement that this new client measure is just an expansion of the kind of evidence-based decision reinforcement that the company provides.

IMS extended its utilization of outsourcing and offshoring parts of its services and consulting delivery resources last year. This was part of its cost-reduction program that also saw a 10% slash in headcount in its global workforce. Similar restructuring moves continue in 2009 after another round of layoffs was announced.

The healthcare data company's performance has been affected by slide in pharmaceuticals brought on by the economic downturn. Apart from that, the pharmaceutical industry has had to deal with a number of issues like rivalry from companies that produce inexpensive generic alternative drugs, a stringent regulatory environment with strict controls from the FDA, and safety concerns.

Donald Otterbien will lead IMS to head the knowledge process-outsourcing client offering. He is named as the general manager of business transformation services. Otterbein maintained that the savings that stem from the offshoring process would give drug firms a chance to spend more resources on growth initiatives as well as research and development.