“Human data science is our revolutionary new way to drive healthcare forward”

The global company, QuintilesIMS that came into existence due to the merger between Quintiles and IMS Health, has recently been rebranded as IQVIA. In an exclusive interview with Mr Naz Haji, Managing Director, IQVIA India, the Biovoice News tried to understand the logic behind renaming, fresh priorities of the company and its focus on human data science. Read the interesting details below

Why was it necessary to rename the QuintilesIMS as IQVIA? What effect would it have on the overall brand value of the company?

IMS Health and Quintiles came together because our customers were asking for better, faster ways to bring innovations to patients and capture the improvements the industry has been pursuing for years. Having completed the majority of our integration activities, we were ready to refocus our attention outward and introduce a new brand to the market. A brand that demonstrated our courage to reimagine what is possible and create solutions for a bold, better future of healthcare.

Our new brand sends a clear signal to our customers that we are committed to harnessing advances in technology, analytics and human ingenuity and delivering solutions that will help them innovate with confidence and drive healthcare forward. The new brand embodies how we have been serving our customers following the merger of Quintiles and IMS Health. It illustrates how we are opening up a new dialogue with them. We are not just providing our customers with a set of offerings but instead a new approach and set of capabilities that are unmatched in the industry.

We are proud of the well-established history and success of the legacy companies from which we were able to create IQVIA. While we know it will take some time to educate our customers and other key stakeholders, we are confident they will understand the rationale behind the creation of IQVIA and will realize the potential of Human Data Science to find better solutions for patients.

What was the thought process behind the creation of new industry segment, ‘human data science’? Does that mean that the company would no longer be doing business in the segments dealt by erstwhile Quintiles and IMS?

Human Data Science is our revolutionary new way to harness advances in technology, analytics and human ingenuity, to deliver solutions that help our customers drive healthcare forward. This newly defined, and evolving discipline combines data science, deep healthcare expertise, and human data to measure and improve health decisions and outcomes.

We believed there was a better way to help further human science by being bold, rethinking the way things work today, and reimagining what the future of healthcare might be. It was time to talk about the confluence of data (about people in general not just healthcare records), technology to mine the data, and deep domain expertise to build, configure, and drive the technology.

Our new category helps piece together the most important parts of what we’re bringing to customers in terms of innovation, capabilities, and potential. The category has three critical, interrelated components. One is human data where improvements in human outcomes are made by seeing beyond the patient journey, second is data science where insights are made possible by advances in data, technology and analytics. The third is human science where solutions to help clients’ efforts bring breakthroughs in science.

Our business solutions and services are enhanced, rather than impacted, by the new brand category.

What opportunities do you foresee for growth in India?

I believe the greatest excitement and opportunity for us at this point in time is to build on our CORE to provide solutions that help our customers reach their goals. That means faster clinical trials. Accelerated speed to market. Getting treatments to the right patients. Achieving results today and being prepared to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

What is the CORE? How do you describe The CORE?

Our customer solutions are powered by the IQVIA CORE. The CORE enables us to provide customized solutions for customers, leveraging the world’s largest curated healthcare information source, advanced analytics, leading technologies and extensive industry knowledge across diseases, geographies, and scientific methods. It fuels the company’s approach to human data science, including faster, more predicable clinical development, innovative approaches to generating real-world evidence, machine learning to improve patient care, and strategies for precision commercial engagement. The seamless integration of these elements from molecule to market enables our customers to drive enhanced value, access and health outcomes around the world.

Will IQVIA also invest in the expansion in terms of infrastructure and human resources? What is the company’s immediate list of activities and priorities in the Indian context? 

We routinely and consistently evaluate our resource needs and makes adjustments in line with our strategy and business requirements to best meet the needs of all our stakeholders – including customers and patients.

Since the merger, we’ve worked to integrate our capabilities in advanced analytics, leading technologies and therapeutic expertise into powerful, differentiated offerings. Our vision in India, as across the globe, is to outpace the inevitable progress of change across the life sciences and accelerate our ability to empower healthcare decision makers to meet the future head on.