Roche Pharma India unveils customer experience centre in Chennai

Doctors and other stakeholders will be able to visualise disease pathways, drug-action in the human body, and co-create better solutions leading to better patient outcomes by using the latest 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) digital technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and AI, a release here said.

"The Roche Experience Center reflects the company’s mission to empower communities with scientific insights and support informed healthcare decisions. This is the first of similar customer experience centers that Roche plans to have in different parts of the country, helping customers experience biopharma innovations in a completely new manner," it said.

“Their choice to set-up the first Roche Customer Experience Center in Chennai is an endorsement of Tamil Nadu’s skilled workforce and unmatched superiority in healthcare globally," Tamil Nadu Industries Minister T R B Rajaa, said at the inauguration.

He exuded hope that the center will help healthcare professionals develop a greater understanding of advanced, innovative treatment options, enabling them to deliver better healthcare to people.

“We are delighted to mark yet another significant milestone in our India journey of advancing access to our healthcare innovations with the inauguration of the Roche Experience center in Chennai, further deepening our ties with this region and India," said MD and CEO of Roche Pharma India V Simpson Emmanuel.

A thriving economy anchored in software services and the abundant availability of top-notch talent make Chennai the perfect city for the company's debut customer experience center, he noted.

The Roche Experience Center will aim to help customers tap into the power of data, insights and advanced visualisation to deliver better care for patients and society, Simpson added.

This is Roche’s fourth investment in India in the digital technology space, after Roche Information Solutions (RIS), Pune, Global Analytics and Technology (GATE) Centers in Chennai and Hyderabad and Offshore Development Center (ODC) in Chennai in partnership with ZS Associates.

The Centre will partner with four tech schools/universities in Tamil Nadu viz. SASTRA Deemed University, Vellore Institute of Technology, Kumaraguru College of Technology and Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Science, to co-create programmes that foster the development on niche skills for immersive technologies and high-end data analytics among the students of these institutions, the release said.

Select students will be provided long-term internship opportunities with Roche on immersive media, real-time engines, high-end data analytics and artificial intelligence.

"This partnership keeps up with the strong legacy of scientific contributions of both Roche and Tamil Nadu," said Head of Data Assets Management, Roche, Karthik Chidambaram.