As the only centre of its kind that the contract research organisation (CRO) operates, the SOC is “effectively a new service offering by Quintiles to complement and support our existing global IT service teams”, spokesperson Phil Bridges told OutsourcingPharma.
The SOC provides monitoring, control and triage of system events and, according to Quintiles, will “underpin” clinical research and commercialization operations for many leading biopharmaceutical organizations.
This approach should allow Quintiles to “resolve issues globally before business operations are impacted”.
With emphasis on the need for efficient data handling in clinical research and commercialization operations, Bridges added that “data is at the heart of everything we do. The quality and accessibility of that data and our global systems determines the success of the work we do for customers.”
Emerging markets
The SOC is hoped to serve as “a true guardian” of Quintiles’ IT systems which will support existing operations as well as those developing in emerging markets.
While hosted in a Quintiles facility and managed by Quintiles resources, the SOC is also staffed by a partner firm in India, details of which were not disclosed.
With operations already existing in Bangalore, Bridges explained that “it makes sense logistically to locate the SOC there. In a larger sense, all of Asia, but specifically India and China, are emerging growth markets for the biopharmaceutical industry and clinical research.”
“Quintiles already has a large business presence in the Asia-Pacific region and placing our Operations Center in India allowed us to improve our IT support for that region while providing 24 x 7 x 365 support globally.”
The opening ceremony took place on October 21st at the Quintiles Bangalore campus in India.