Novartis AG expects India to capture a chunk of the $1 billion investment in software development and IT projects that its undertakes globally every year.

The global drug major's Indian arm, Novartis India, yesterday announcement the commissioning of its software development centre in Mumbai.

The projects are aimed at providing specialised IT solutions not only to fasten drug development but also reduce the overall cost of drug discovery and at the same time ensure quality.

J Barrington, chief information officer of Novartis AG, said, "With a highly qualified IT professional pool, quality software processes and low cost structure, there is no reason to believe that India will not attract a major proportion of the our overall global investment. We expect Indian software development unit to overtake its global peers in terms of quantity and quality in the near future."

The Indian unit is expected to strengthen the software development work done at the global major's other such development centers in the US, Switzerland and the UK.

Its key work areas will include modelling, simulation and document and knowledge management.

"The focus of the IT application technology would be to develop more targets and quality targets in the process of drug development. The idea is also to rule out targets that are likely to be unsuccessful," Iso Moshfegh, global head, development IT, Novartis Pharma AG said.