Pfizer effects hundreds of field force job cuts in India as it rewires its commercialization approach and creates new roles leveraging its ‘digital core’, but industry experts suggest there is a complex mix of other factors at play as well.

Pfizer’s India managing director, S Sridhar, talks to Scrip about funding startups focused on oncology and digital health, via the CSR route. Two such startups, SiCureMi and Tinkertech, are close to commercialization. Meanwhile, Pfizer's pact with MPP will allow the COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid to find its way to India and 94 other low- and middle-income countries

Senior management executives of Roche, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Novo Nordisk in India signal momentum in product launch and clinical trial activity, belying apprehension of wider cutbacks by foreign firms in the country, though one executive stressed that “tried and tested models” may not work in the largely self-pay market.

Executives from J&J, Pfizer and Johns Hopkins share ideas on driving Indian biopharma innovation via innovation centers and incubators set up in association with academic institutions. On the other side of the table, Indian academia highlights the need for industry participation in skill building and the perils of ‘targeted thinking’