Cognizant, a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, today announced a multi-year agreement with AstraZeneca to deliver comprehensive biostatistics and medical reporting services to generate clinical study reports.

Under the agreement, Cognizant will provide centralized statistical programming, statistical analysis, medical writing, and document publishing services, spanning the entire chain of clinical data reporting from case report forms to clinical study reports. This will enable AstraZeneca to increase operational efficiency, reduce cycle times, and optimize costs. AstraZeneca will continue to own and manage key scientific and medical activities associated with the design of clinical trial programs, and the interpretation of data from them.

“Cognizant will help us streamline our clinical development operations. This is key to our business transformation aimed at achieving greater efficiency, agility, flexibility, and global competitiveness – all of which are crucial to clinical trials and development of new drugs,” said Karin Wingstrand, Vice President and Head of Clinical Development at AstraZeneca. “Leveraging Cognizant’s IT and business process expertise allows AstraZeneca to focus more time, energy, and investment on those clinical activities that will make a difference in developing innovative medicines more quickly for patients.”