Pfizer India partners with Max Super Speciality Hospitals to strengthen evidence generation and encourage young researchers
New Delhi: Biopharmaceutical major Pfizer India today announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Max Super Specialty Hospitals to give fellowships to young doctors in 17 Max Hospitals to gather real-world evidence on drug efficacy and proven therapies from existing Electronic Patient records. This evidence generation will focus on prevention, treatment and management of diseases that are of public health priority in India, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. The bespoke fellowships will be a form of recognition and will enable young clinicians who want to pursue medical research to do so with clear goals in place.
Commenting on the MoU, Dr. Sonali Dighe, Senior Director Medical Affairs at Pfizer, said “We are very proud to partner with the Max chain of hospitals. This step is in line with our purpose to bring breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Partnerships with eminent institutions such as Max chain of hospitals, with its large footprint across 17 hospitals in the country can help in this. Our partnership with Max will focus on capacity building initiatives including educational initiatives for HCPs and clinical research team in several therapy areas, such as oncology, cardiology, anti-microbial stewardship with and will include initiatives in women’s health, dermatology and vaccines. We are certain that this partnership will be another important milestone in our collective journey to improve our collective understanding of disease conditions and overcome the myriad health challenges of our country. This is one of the many partnerships Pfizer is exploring to apply science and our resources to improve people’s lives. #ScienceWillWin”
The fellowship program will provide young clinicians and researchers at all 17Max Speciality Hospitals across 4 states in India, an opportunity to acquire funding and sponsorships for their research work. The selection criteria for these fellowships, will be decided by the medical and research experts at Max Healthcare. Pfizer will provide technical and financial support to the program.
Pfizer sees this as a long-term, academic collaboration to promote high-quality medical research in the country. Additionally, through this collaboration, Pfizer and Max Hospitals plan to build centers of excellence in rare diseases. The MAX hospital will be COE for placing various RWE studies, capability building workshops, fellowship programs in rare disease area to start with. This may get extended to other Tas going forward
Dr. Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director from Max Healthcare, said “Real-world evidence is becoming increasingly important in healthcare decision making. It has the potential to provide invaluable insights and work in synergy with other emerging developments such as a greater use of data science and genomics. Together these efforts can transform the way we look at modern medicine. It gives us immense pleasure to collaborate with Pfizer India, which has taken significant strides into several areas of cutting-edge research, with the aim to solve critical scientific problems.”