Some dream, some discuss and very few actually do it, this is the story of Dr.Anji Reddy, son turmeric farmer and his journey from a humble town called Tadepalli in Andhra Pradesh to getting his business Dr. Reddy's labs listed on the New York Stock exchange the epicenter of capitalism. A book written by Dr.Reddy himself about his early days as a chemical scientist and how his entrepreneurial journey started.
A lot of details about the policy environment during the 60's in India like the MRTP act, price controls specifically related to Pharma products have been described in detail and will give the reader an idea of how difficult it must have been to start an enterprise in India. In spite of all the ups and the downs and multiple failures Dr.Reddy's is one among the few Indian Pharma success stories that has created tremendous wealth for all its stake holders.
Very few might know that Dr Reddy's was the first company ( all though it had a different name then) to make bulk drugs at such a large scale in India, while older stalwart Indian pharma companies like Cipla and Ranbaxy were too apprehensive to get into the bulk drugs market , Dr Reddy's takes this huge risk and comes out with quite a few block buster chemicals like Metronidazole, Sulfamethoxazole, Ibuprofen etc etc.
The book also gives an overview of the golden period of the 60s and 70s which is often reffered to as the golden era of antibiotics when penicillin, Norfloxacin, Ciprofloxcin became extremely popular in treatment of various medical complications. We also get to understand how competitive the international pharma market is and why there are so many litigations, patent infringments every now and then in the pharma world, the sheer size of business opportunity and stakes make it so competitive. DRLs journey outside India, especially the lucrative markets of western Europe and US are well explained with all details of challenges faced and is a lesson for future generation of Indian companies that might want to enter the US market.
DRLs foray into drug discovery and its moderate success in this field, the failed acquisition of German company Betapharm( at that time it was the biggest Pahrma aquisition by ann Indian firm) , DRLs entry into Biotech and DRLs CSR initiatives have all been elaborately detailed out.
Lots of anecdotes of Dr. Reddy's work style, why Hyderabad is the pharma capital of India,how he dealt with the MNC competition when he started the business, his relationship with industry peers like legendary Cipla Boss Dr.Yusuf Hamied, Bhai Mohan Singh of Ranbaxy, how they decided to name a molecule of the glizatone family as Balaglizatone in honor of Lord Balaji etc etc make it all the more interesting.
Lots of technical stuff that mostly a pharmacologist or a organic chemist can only understand have been written, I personally did not understand most of it but I sure understood one thing that Dr.Reddy was fascinated by chemistry and medicines and never ending ambition to find new methods to produce drugs and thereby reduce cost and make it more affordable to people in the developing world.
The dominant theme throughout the book was about good science, affordable medicines and reasonable business sense to deliver profits.
A good read to understand the early years of the Indian Pharma Business.
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