SAP, a global leader in e-business solutions' offers 'mySAP Pharmaceuticals,' software designed and developed exclusively for the pharmaceutical sector. The company is engaged in enabling business processes through hardware and software solutions in the emerging pharma-biotech market. India is a prime focus for mySAP Pharmaceuticals. With a view to create awareness on mySAP Pharmaceuticals, the company has devised an exclusive press campaign for the pharma sector as part of its marketing strategy that highlights the indispensability of the application.

mySAP Pharmaceuticals plays a major role in the smooth operation of processes in research and development, materials management, production planning, materials management and process control infrastructure apart from specific protocols for interaction. mySAP Pharmaceuticals is a complete control system, Nagaraj Bhargava, national manager, marketing & alliances, SAP India Pvt. Ltd., told Pharmabiz.com. "It is not just about technology but a change in the working process," he added.

Worldwide, SAP has been offering solutions for the last 20 years to the pharmaceutical sector. Pharma majors like Pfizer, Bristol Myers, Aventis, Glaxo SmithKline, Eli Lilly and Pharmacia Upjohn are large users of SAP solutions. In India, it is associated with companies like Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Orchid Chemicals, Blue Cross Labs etc.

The unique feature of mySAP Pharmaceuticals is its FDA compliance where the provision of Part 11 electronics signatures, a critical aspect for compliance, is included. mySAP Pharmaceuticals is used in R&D and regulatory compliance for submission for IND (investigational new drug application) apart from IDE (investigational device exemption) and NDA (new drug application). The solutions also ease out issues of country specific clinical trial application and import licences of clinical trial samples to any location.

The advantage of mySAP Pharmaceuticals is that it enables the total process control like certification of production plants for hygiene, R&D administration, management of global outsourcing projects and allocation of manpower.

mySap Pharmaceuticals is being used to consolidate large companies where the systems need to be unified after mergers and acquisitions. The big advantage of SAP is that it enables global project time report, better defined accountability, understanding the scope of project and maintaining schedules.

In India, the information infrastructure to set basic business processes in place is done by SAP R3 suite. Another area of interest, which is fast catching up here, is the supply chain and customer relation management.

On the competition in the pharma sector, Bhargava said, "We are the leaders both worldwide and in India despite the presence of Baan and Oracle. In 2003, more installations are expected from the pharmaceutical sector where consultancy and training support are included.

According to Bhargava, the cost of software is around Rs one crore. The investment is continuous for a company and we conduct training programmes free of cost at the customers sites. For implementation of the software, SAP has 16 partners like IBM, Wipro, HP, Siemens Information System, Sun Microsystems, HCL and TCS who have specific templates for pharma and the time of implementation is 3-4 months, although it could vary from six-eight months in the first phase.

SAP has pre-configured systems on pharma. The marketing strategy, since it started in India in 1996, has been to work with customers and partners and see the software has reasonable value for the customers. Our association with leading names in the IT sector for systems integration gives value-added results, he said.

mySap Pharmaceuticals is being used to consolidate large companies where the systems need to be unified after mergers and acquisitions by companies. The big advantage of SAP is the generation of global project time report, better accountability, understanding thescope of project and maintaining schedules.