RUSSIAN GAMBIT

AMID CONCERNS SURROUNDING SPUTNIK V AND THE LAUNCH OF A SINGLE-DOSE VACCINE, INDIAN COMPANIES, INCLUDING HETERO, STELIS BIOPHARMA AND GLAND PHARMA ARE ON TRACK TO MAKE 900 MILLION DOSES OF SPUTNIK V IN A BID TO ALLEVIATE THE COUNTRY'S SUPPLY CONSTRAINTS

- MANU BALACHANDRAN & DIVYA J SHEKHAR

Vamsi Krishna Bandi knows the importance of staying relevant. In fact, he has an appetite for it. After all, his father, Dr Bandi Parthasaradhi (BPS) Reddy, the first employee of Hyderabad-based Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, had quit the company as a chief technologist in 1993 when he realized that a change in management could curtail his future in the company. BPS Reddy, a scientist with a doctorate in synthetic chemistry, was a close confidante of Dr. K Anji Reddy, the erstwhile founder and chairman of Dr. Reddy’s, and was the man in charge of operational functions at the pharmaceutical company by the time he was in his mid-30s.

“In 1989, GV Prasad [current co-chairman and MD of Dr Reddy’s] joined the company while Satish Reddy [chairman of Dr Reddy’s] joined in 1992,” says BPS Reddy. “That’s when I thought, ‘Why can’t I establish a laboratory where I can implement my own philosophy, give jobs and opportunities to people who came from villages, like me?’ Because the freedom will come down with the next generation joining the management.”

The rest is history. With ₹90 lakh from his savings, and by selling a plot of his land and his shares at Dr. Reddy’s, BPS Reddy set up a laboratory, Hetero, in Hyderabad in 1993. Today, the company boasts over 21,000 employees and has grown into one of India’s best-known pharma companies, with businesses across active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), generics and biosimilars. It is the largest maker of antiretroviral drugs used for HIV patients and makes one out of every two Remdesivirs—it has seen soaring demand as Covid19 cases peaked—across the globe.