“Pankaj Patel has been named the “Best Pharma Man of the year” by the Foundation of Indian Industry and Economists in recognition of the growth of Cadila under his leadership”
Born in 1951, Pankaj Ramanbhai Patel holds Bachelor of Pharmacy and Master of Pharmacy degrees from Gujarat University, as well as a BA in Science and Law from the University of Mumbai and is an Indian billionaire businessman as the Chairman and Managing Director of Cadila Healthcare, the fifth largest pharmaceutical company in India
Wearing Several HatS
Pankaj Patel, Chairman and Managing Director, Zydus Cadila has over 35 years of experience in the Indian Pharmaceutical industry.
In 2017, Pankaj became the President of FICCI, and is also the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, IISER, Kolkata and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, in addition to being a Member of the Board of Governors and also the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
He also holds responsibility of Chairman of IIM Udaipur, Member Governing Board of The Ahmedabad University, Chairman of School of Life Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Member of the Board of Management of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and Executive Chairman, Vice President and Trustee of the Gujarat Cancer Society and Chairman of the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute.
Pankaj has been named the “Best Pharma Man of the year 2003” by the Foundation of Indian Industry and Economists in recognition of the growth of Cadila under his leadership.
A long time back he had predicted that Zydus Cadila would become the third-largest pharmaceutical company in India; however, his company saw ups and downs and its fortunes were reversed and Pankaj even fell out of the list of richest Indians in 2005.
Known for facing challenges head on, Pankaj not only bounced back, but expanded his business further. From a turnover of Rs. 250 crore in 1995, the group posted revenues of over Rs. 6300 crore in FY2013.
With 20 discovery research programmes under various stages of clinical development, the Group invests over 7% of its turnover in research. At the group’s state-of-the-art research arm, the Zydus Research Centre, over 400 research scientists are engaged in NCE research alone.
Future PerFect
Pankaj is targeting Lipaglyn sales of 100 crore in the next 3-5 years, wants to launch 2 New Chemical Entities (NCE) products by 2020, and would invest 6-7% of revenues on research and development.
Planning to invest Rs. 500 crore every year, Zydus under his dynamic leadership is aiming to be a research- based pharmaceutical company by 2020. He is guiding Zydus to offer a dedicated Lipaglyn support programme to patients and caregivers. The programme shall provide important support and information regarding access, adherence, education, thereby helping patients to start and appropriately manage their disease and therapy over time.
He has already developed Zydus Cadila under his insightful leadership as an innovative, global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of healthcare therapies.
Under his leadership, Zydus Cadila has evolved into a fully integrated, global healthcare provider, with strengths all along the pharmaceutical value chain. With a core competence in the field of healthcare, Zydus Cadila provides total healthcare solutions ranging from formulations, active pharmaceutical ingredients and animal healthcare products to wellness products.
