MSD Pharmaceutical invests $16.1 million in Pune centre

MSD Pharmaceutical has launched a new centre in Pune that will house a number of its divisions — including the commercial biopharma data and analytics organisation, Human Health Insights Analytics and Data (HHIAD).

Rehan Khan, managing director, MSD India, said the company is committing an additional capital investment of $16.1 million into this centre to enhance the innovation ecosystem. “MSD’s Human Health division has had an established presence in India for over a decade, with 65% of our forecasting organisation based in Pune,” Khan said.

As MSD had benefited from the high-quality talent in India they decided to expand the current footprint and invest further by recruiting additional talent and establishing a new location in the Pune World Trade Centre. Khan further said that MSD India is committed to delivering the value of data and analytics in improving patient and business outcomes worldwide.

MSD Pharmaceuticals is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck Sharp & Dohme (known as Merck & Co. in the US and Canada). During the pandemic, MSD had an opportunity to apply advanced analytics, leveraging hospitalisation trends and intubation rates, to forecast supply demands. Those insights helped MSD reallocate supply, so healthcare providers could leverage appropriate products for patients. “The use of data and analytics in this scenario, allowed us to impact 2.5 million patient lives,” said Keisha D Cooke, strategy & value realisation leader at HHAID.

MSD plans to increase the headcount by 220% and have a team of 250. Additionally, about $0.5 million will be further invested in upskilling the employee task force.

The centre would link analytics activities to commercial strategies, and deliver insights at speed, with high quality and at low cost while growing the company’s IP. MSD was looking at the centre to foster a cultural shift to data-driven decision making and a ‘data first’ mindset through Data & Analytics Transformation.