About Novartis: 

Novartis is a focused innovative medicines company. Every day, we work to reimagine medicine to improve and extend people’s lives so that patients, healthcare professionals, and societies are empowered in the face of serious disease. Our medicines reach more than 280 million people worldwide. 

About Novartis in India:

Novartis has had a significant footprint in India since 1947, with two legal entities namely: Novartis Healthcare Private Limited (NHPL) and Novartis India Limited (NIL). India is amongst a handful of countries in the world that have a broad Novartis presence including Pharma International (commercial organization), Development (R&D organization), Novartis Corporate Center (Global Capability Center), and Biomedical Research. Employing nearly 8,300 people, Novartis India has consistently been recognized as a Top Employer. The commercial organization is split between NHPL and NIL. All other divisions fall under NHPL. 

About Novartis Global Development:

The Novartis Global Development is responsible for advancing our pipeline of investigational medicines, to bring transformative new treatment options to patients. It leads the clinical development of potential new medicines, running large clinical trials and generating evidence that turns molecules into medicines. The key hubs of this division are in Switzerland (Basel), the USA (East Hanover); and India (Hyderabad and Mumbai). 

About Novartis Development Hub in India:

The India hub has evolved over more than 20 years and today sees three vibrant state-of-the-art centers across two cities, Hyderabad - at the Novartis Corporate Center (NOCC) and Genome Valley, and a recent one in Mumbai. Today, the India hub is an important base to support the development journey of many breakthrough medicines across all therapy areas (cardiovascular, oncology, immunology, neurology, and global health). The vast footprint of the Development division in India (~2,400 employees) is instrumental in supporting the company’s long-term growth and delivering on its purpose to improve and extend people’s lives.

Eligibility: 

• Participants must register in teams of 1-5 members. 
• All students are eligible to participate in this engagement. 
• All startups and incubators are also eligible to participate in this engagement.
• Cross-organization teams are allowed. 
• Cross-specialization teams are allowed. 
• A participant cannot be a member of more than one team. 
• Any deviation from the aforementioned rules will result in immediate disqualification of the entire team. 

Rounds: 

Round 1: MCQ Assessment

• All registered teams will have to take an online MCQ Assessment. 
• It is mandatory for all team members to attempt this round at any time within the provided window i.e. 12:00 PM - 8:00 PM on 9th December 2024.
• There will be no negative marking and every participant will be ranked on Accuracy + Speed (Time Taken).
• The average score of all team members will be taken into consideration for evaluations, and participating teams will advance to the next level based on their performance in this assessment.

Round 2: Screening

• The shortlisted teams have to submit a pitch deck in PDF or PPTX format. Your pitch deck should include key aspects such as the problem, solution, and team details.
• In this phase, there will be four case studies/problem statements. These problem statements shall focus on challenges faced during drug development and conducting clinical studies on innovative medicines.
• Participants are free to choose and submit solutions for multiple case studies as well.
• The maximum number of slides can be 5 (excluding the cover and thank you slides)
• In this initial screening round, we’re looking for innovative ideas, clear value propositions, and teams with the passion to take their vision forward. 
• Submit your initial theoretical draft proposal clearly outlining the initial thoughts & understanding of the problem, approach (eg. ML, neural network, etc.), dependencies/key considerations, expected cost of implementation, etc. 
• The proposal must also include all relevant references/sources. 
• Evaluation criteria: Your application will be reviewed by a panel of experienced judges, and successful applicants will proceed to the next round. 
• The evaluation shall be based on: 
  • Basic solution design 
  • Approach 
  • Feasibility 
  • Quality & depth of presentation 

Round 3: Semi-Finals 

• Participants must submit their final solutions in a specified format to ensure consistency and ease of evaluation. 
• The solution should be packaged into a single zip file containing a detailed report and all the code necessary to reproduce the results. Below are the detailed guidelines for preparing and submitting your solution. 
• Contents of the zip file: 
  • Report (pdf format): [Not more than 5 pages] 
  • File Name: <name of report>.pdf 
  • Content: 
    • Title Page: 
    • Team Name 
    • Use-Case Number 
    • Team Members: Names and Contact Information 
  • Abstract: A brief summary of the problem, approach, and results. 
  • Introduction: Background information and problem statement. 
  • Methodology: Detailed explanation of the approach, including data preprocessing, feature engineering, model development, and evaluation.
  • Results: 
    • Presentation of results using appropriate metrics. 
    • Diagrams and visualizations to support the findings (e.g., charts, graphs, confusion matrices). 
    • Analysis of the results and insights gained. 
• Code: (must be reproducible) 

Round 4: Finals – In-person pitch

• Three shortlisted finalist teams per use-case (12 teams in total) shall undergo mentoring by our panel of experts to prepare for a final pitch to the Novartis leadership and SME panel.

• The 12 finalist teams will be invited to Novartis Hyderabad Campus for the final pitch presentations.
• The teams will pitch their ideas offline in front of an expert panel of judges, providing a unique opportunity to showcase their innovation, strategy, and potential in a dynamic, face-to-face setting. 
• This round will test not only the strength of your idea but also your team’s ability to communicate and defend your vision under real-time scrutiny. 

What’s in it for you? 

• Winners of each of the four use cases will receive a cash prize of Rs. 1,25,000*
• The first runners-up of each of the four use cases will receive a cash prize of Rs. 75,000*
• All the National Finalists may get an opportunity to win PPIs from the Novartis team basis the evaluation criteria and at the sole discretion of Novartis.
• Selected teams may get an opportunity to collaborate with Novartis on co-creating a solution, post-evaluation and closure of the competition.
• *Terms & Conditions Apply. Refer to the T&C Document.