Inspiring others

Dr Chitra Lele

Dr Chitra Lele, Chief Scientific Officer, Sciformix Corporation has been named in the top 100 most inspiring people in the life sciences industry by an international magazine. She was selected from distinguished nominees representing a broad cross section of life science sectors based on affecting positive changes within their companies and the industry at large.

Currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer at Sciformix Corporation, she has been a part of the company leadership from its inception and has over 20 years of experience in the lifescience industry.

Lele has been recognised for her ability to view industry trends as challenges not burdens, and as opportunities not obstacles. She has also been commended for her passion and conviction for the industry; her ability to innovate and think outside of the box and develop breakthrough strategies, products, and services; for pioneering new paths and lifting her company to new heights.

Prior to her stint with Sciformix, she worked as Executive Director responsible for Indian operations of Pfizer Global R&D. Leading the biometrics department for Pfizer, she was notable to grow it to a staff of 400 personnel as well as helped develop an outsourcing strategy for clinical data management in India, strategising and implementing a new model for partnering with Contract Research Organisations (CRO’s).

These initiatives have been credited with increased capacity building in the Indian CRO industry, leading to large scale offshoring of biometrics and medical writing in a functional service provider model from cost-effective locations, with several pharma companies taking advantage of the new talent pool. She has been a pioneer in operationalising a globally distributed model to support design, analysis, and reporting of clinical trials.

She is especially passionate about bringing up the next generation of scientists, by working simultaneously as a visiting faculty member in a reputed University in India, developing and teaching new masters level courses. She is among the founding members of the Academy for Clinical Excellence (the first institute in India to provide clinical research related education) as well as the Indian Association for Statistics in Clinical Trials (to provide a platform for the statisticians and programmers to share and learn). She holds a PhD in Statistics from Stanford University, with prior experience working as a biostatistician in cancer epidemiology at both Stanford and the University of California.

Lele has been instrumental in setting up and establishing Sciformix Corporation in all respects, from the management of operations and delivery, to strategising the organisational path and trajectory, growing the business; laying down the foundations of the organisation which has been conducive to its growth. She has chartered the path of Sciformix by determining services to focus on across a number of industry segments, the geographies to grow in, partnership models suited for each service line and the conceptualisation of new solutions and offerings. She has nurtured her entrepreneurial spirit in continuing the growth and success of Sciformix.

Since Sciformix is an outsourcing partner, she believes that the company is particularly impacted by industry trends for outsourcing domain-intensive activities. However, the fact that many more companies, not just the large global ones, are open to working with partners in a globally distributed manner and consider many areas that were previously taboo for outsourcing is a favourable development. “Some of the large companies which have years of experience in working with offshore partners, are re-evaluating their strategy based on their experience and are getting into deep relationships with large full-service CROs or want a stronger onshore presence of the vendor, which is disadvantageous for Sciformix, but at the same time, there are some who want to move to a two-vendor strategy and are interested in the second vendor being more specialised, like Sciformix,” she is quoted as saying.

In a nutshell, the focus on quality and compliance has increased substantially. Companies have acknowledged the growing commercial relevance of the emerging markets which are now seeing more action from the industry.

A staunch believer in education for the underpriveleged and affordable healthcare, she is confident that personalised medicine will soon become a reality. She also believes that the increased importance of and availability of Big Data, in the areas of safety and effectiveness of medicines, will influence and shape the path of companies such as the one she leads.