Pfizer India, Max Hospitals join hands to promote research on drug efficacy

Representative image.

Pfizer India and Max Super Specialty Hospitals signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide fellowships to young clinicians and researchers working in 17 Max Specialty Hospitals across four Indian states in a bid to promote evidence-based research on drug efficacy, the companies said in a statement released on July 15. 

The fellows, who would be provided with access to existing electronic health records, will focus their research on prevention, treatment and management of diseases that are of public health priority in India such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The selection criteria for the fellowship funded by Pfizer will be decided by medical and research experts at Max Healthcare.

“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," Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director from Max Healthcare said.

Apart from this academic collaboration to promote medical research, Pfizer and Max Hospitals said in the statement that they would build centres of excellence (COE) for rare diseases. Initially, Max Hospitals has been designated as the COE for evidence-based research and fellowships in the area of rare diseases. The collaboration may extend to opening other COEs in the future.

“We are certain that this partnership will be another important milestone in our journey to improve our collective understanding of disease conditions and overcome the myriad of health challenges in our country. This is one of the many partnerships Pfizer is exploring to apply science and our resources to improve people’s lives,” Sonali Dighe, Senior Director, Medical Affairs at Pfizer, said.