Pfizer India recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Father Muller Research to strengthen evidence generation and encourage young researchers to gather real-world evidence on drug efficacy and proven therapies from the 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, the company said in a statement.
Commenting on the MoU, Dr Sonali Dighe, Senior Director, Medical Affairs, Pfizer, said in the statement, “………we have now partnered with one of India’s leading research institutes Father Muller Research. This partnership will focus on capacity-building initiatives including educational initiatives for healthcare practitioners and clinical research teams in several therapy areas, such as oncology, cardiology, anti-infectives, women’s health, dermatology and vaccines………”
Pfizer sees this as a long-term, academic collaboration to promote high-quality medical research in the country. Additionally, through this collaboration, Pfizer and Father Muller Research Center plan to build centres of excellence in rare diseases. The Father Muller Research will be COE for placing various RWE studies, capability-building workshops, fellowship programmes in rare disease area, to start with. This may get extended to other therapy areas going forward, the statement added.