Mumbai: Novartis Pharma AG has set a software development centre at Mumbai. The project labelled Development IT@India would look to enhance the strength of Novartis'' three other centres in Switzerland, the US and UK by providing specialised IT solutions for drug development in a cost-effective and timely manner.

Iso Mosfegh, global head of development IT, Novartis Pharma AG, told press persons that India''s choice as the fourth site was a logical choice over countries such as Ireland, Spain, Italy, China and Russia. "Expertise, skill and quality were some of the reasons that India was chosen over the other countries," he said, in response to whether economics where the only choice to swing the project to India.

Novartis would have 60 full-time employees in India in 2004 and would look to scale this up to 102 between 2005 and 2008, he said. The project would result in a saving of $42 million for the company over five years.

Jim Barington, chief information officer of Novartis, said the company invested about $1 billion on IT per annum, to support corporate, pharma and consumer health activities.

Ranjit Shahani, country president of Novartis India, said that the convergence of pharma and info-tech heralded the changes set to take place in the pharma segment post 2005, when India conforms to internationally recognised intellectual property rights.