Source: infotech.indiatimes.com

BANGALORE: Wipro Ltd, India’s No. 3 software services exporter, is seeing a revival in flow of outsourcing deals as the turmoil in the global financial industry eases a bit, joint chief executives of its IT business said.

Still, Wipro is cautious about its prospects in the next two quarters and expects business to accelerate towards the end of the fiscal year ending in March, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani said.

“Relative to how it was in the first quarter of this (calendar) year, there was a feeling that things are almost frozen, I think things are beginning to come back to normal,” Paranjpe said.

“The good news is that there have been no casualties after Bear Sterns. Whatever management changes had to happen has taken place in many of the big companies.”

India’s export-driven software services companies get the bulk of their revenue from banks and financial firms, sectors which have been battered by the turmoil in global financial markets.

In April, Wipro, which offers IT solutions such as system integration, software application development and back-office services, reported its slowest quarterly earnings growth in about five years as its clients cut back on technology spending.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NEW YORK: Cost pressures, the need to tap global talent, and growth opportunities in emerging markets has led Western pharmaceutical companies to shift substantial manufacturing and clinical-trial works to India and China, according to a new study.

Big pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Eli Lilly and Johnson and Johnson are now counting these two countries for advanced research and development, the study sponsored by the Ewing Marion Foundation said.

Indian and Chinese scientists are rapidly innovating and creating their own intellectual property as a result of Research and Development activities, the report entitled ‘The globalization of innovation: Pharmaceuticals. Can India and China Cure the Global Pharmaceutical Market”.

In 2006, 5.5% of all global pharmaceutical patent applications (WIPO PCT applications) named one inventor or more were located in India, and 8.4% in China. This had increased fourfold from that in 1995.

“Globalization is happening faster than people think. Having India and China conduct such sophisticated research and participate in drug discovery was unimaginable even five years ago,” said Vivek Wadhwa, an executive of Duke University and a fellow at the Labour and Worklife Programme of Harvard Law School, who led the team of researchers conducting the study.

“The challenge is for America to understand this trend and realize the potential of globalization,” he added. The US benefits from innovation wherever it occurs, said Robert Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. “Having more countries like India and China develop treatments for diseases is good for the world and will help reduce the overall costs of health care.”

Through detailed interviews with executives of 16 pharmaceutical firms in China and India on their business models, value-chain activities, partnerships and technology capabilities, the researchers concluded that Indian and Chinese companies are making strides in most of the lucrative segments of global value chains.

In less lucrative segments such as preclinical testing, animal experimentation and manufacturing, Chinese firms appear to be more prevalent while India is a more mature venue for chemistry and drug-discovery activities.

Domestic Indian and Chinese firms rarely have the capital and the regulatory expertise to develop a drug beyond phase II clinical trials. Their commercial development of new intellectual property therefore necessitates relationships with major multinational corporations.

The study found that India is playing a more strategic role in early discovery and its drug companies have the most experience in selling generic drugs that meet FDA standards. Companies such as Ranbaxy, Aurigene, Advinus, Nicholas Piramal and Jubilant have negotiated long-term deals with Western pharmaceutical companies to discover and develop new chemical entities.

In a growing number of cases, the Indian companies share the financial risk in discovery as well as the potential financial rewards. One Chinese company, Hutchison MediPharma, has formed a similar partnership with Eli Lilly.

Others are likely to follow suit as Chinese contract research organizations gain experience and Western companies trust in China’s ability to protect intellectual property, said the researchers.