The All India Organisation for Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), under its freshly announced company AIOCD Ltd, has signed for a Joint Venture with the Chennai based Medi-Infotec, a health Information Technology (IT) consultant and services provider offering hospitals flexible delivery capabilities, to come up with a market surveillance, sales data audit, product for the Indian pharmaceutical industry.

The AIOCD Pharma AWACS, the new entity under the JV, will launch its product soon according to market sources. The new product, surveillance report with data and analysis based on sales data audit from the pharmacy outlets in various parts of the country, would be launched within two months, they added.

Under the agreement, the AIOCD Ltd will provide a panel of expertise and necessary infrastructure to collect sales data from the retail pharmacies, while Medi-Infotec will execute the operational elements including Information Technology for developing the product. The product is expected to appear in market for sales by March or April 2007, informed a source from Medi-Infotec. The company will install its software and a scanner in the retail outlet, through which all the prescription data and sales details would be documented, to ensure the authenticity of the report.

Though the company officials refused to comment on the profit sharing terms under the agreement, sources close to the development informed that the MoU includes a consensus on 50:50 profit sharing method. They added that the service provider company has plans to invest around Rs 30 crore for the project and the data will be released in every week for the customers from pharma industry.

"Under the JV, we would gather the sales data from the outlets under AIOCD Ltd. We have a completely IT Enabled System for surveillance to handle the project," commented a Medi-Infotec source to Pharmabiz. "Our company currently have our presence in South India. We are planning for a steady growth, focusing the South East region and the MoU with AIOCD will be a catalyst for our growth," added the person.

Medi-Infotec is a company formed by a team of doctors to provide specialized software for the latest requirements of doctor fraternity. The company is dedicated in the development and marketing of medical management software. Established in 1994, in Chennai, Medi-infotec has grown swiftly to an IT solutions provider. The company, at present, occupies end-to-end service capabilities including business consulting, client server and legacy systems development, maintenance outsourcing, reengineering, contract programming and network consulting.