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PROFILE: KALLAM ANJI REDDY
Doctor Yes
By the sheer spirit of innovation and research, a scientist
from the private sector has authored an international success story worth
Rs 800 crore
By Amarnath K. Menon
This is about a
different kind of drug addict. For, the addiction of Dr Kallam Anji Reddy
may turn out to be the liberation of millions. And, here in this dim-lit
room in Hyderabad, he is waiting for that distant day, the day when "made-in-India
drugs of international quality will be available over the counter around
the globe". That will be the day of his ultimate high, or, in his
own soft-spoken words, "spiritual enlightenment". Actually,
the day is not so distant.
 Please
note: Reddy, 61, doesn't take drugs, he makes them. Today, the founder-chairman
of Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), Hyderabad, is India's first scientist,
that too from the private sector, who has made it big in the international
marketplace. He has just sold the first in a new class of anti-diabetes
molecules called insulin sensitisers to the Swiss multinational Novartis
Pharma AG for $55 million (Rs 258 crore). The multinational giant will
also have the rights to develop and market the drug. "It is a significant
event in our evolution as a research-oriented pharmaceutical company,"
says Reddy, who at the moment seems to be excited more by the name of
the buyer than by the price.
If Reddy's drug is worth the money, by 2007,
some 140 million afflicted with Type 2 diabetes will be the beneficiaries.
Dr Reddy's Research Foundation (DRF), the R&D arm set up in 1993 to
take up frontline research, has already sold two anti-diabetic molecules
to the Danish firm Novo Nordisk in 1997 and 1998 for $8 million. And Reddy's
current obsession is a drug that reduces bad cholesterol and triglycerides
and elevates HDL or good, beneficial cholesterol. That will be a revolutionary
moment, for there is no effective drug for metabolic disorders. Once it
is cleared after clinical trials in Europe, Reddy plans to produce the
drug by himself. Negotiations consume so much time, and he has other products
in mind, including two for the treatment of cancer.
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Reddy has just sold the
first in a revolutionary class of anti-diabetes molecules to Novartis
for $55 million (Rs 258 crore).
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This is a unique evolutionary tale in Indian
science. The can-do determination of one man, that too from outside the
official scientific establishment, has become the finest moment in Indian
R&D. The achievement is all the more important because biotechnology
is the happening area in science today. The man himself remains modest:
"I did not even in the wildest of dreams imagine that I would come
this far." Perhaps it was inevitable. "He was talking about
R&D when it was not fashionable to do so. He is a perfect role model,"
says Sandhya Tewari, deputy director, Confederation of Indian Industry.
True, there were no takers when Reddy, a scientist
with no foreign qualifications (graduation in pharmaceutical science and
technology from the Bombay University, doctorate from the National Chemical
Laboratory in Pune) advocated the Japanese model of advancement of basic
research and of upgrading industry to invent new molecules for development
way back in 1993. He was then delivering the presidential address at the
Bangalore session of the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress.
DRF is a vindication of his argument. An investment
of Rs 111.75 crore in eight years has led to its researchers filing for
55 US patents, of which 19 have already been granted. No mean achievement,
for the best of pharma companies in India have not secured more than nine
patents after investing $20 million in research.
His stint at the state-owned Indian Drugs and
Pharmaceuticals Limited has helped Reddy switch his business strategies.
In the beginning, like others in the industry, he copied liberally, taking
full advantage of the government's policy of rejecting international patents
and allowing companies to produce generic drugs. But he realised that
by 2005, under the WTO agreement, product patents would be recognised
in India.
So, relying on experience, Reddy staggered the
research schedule to focus first on "anologues" that are marginally
different versions of existing drugs. Then he moved on to the new class
of insulin sensitisers and finally began work with a compact but competent
team of molecular biologists at the research centre in Atlanta, US, in
July 2000. His direction for corporate R&D enabled DRL to achieve
through its own research what no other company has done in this country.
The Indian Space Research Organisation, though state controlled, is the
only other scientific organisation that has shown some staying power.
DRL's turnover in 1985, one year after its inception, was Rs 1.5 crore.
Today it is Rs 800 crore.
But that has not changed Reddy's lifestyle.
The son of a turmeric farmer from Guntur is a low-profile innovator. "The
passion for discovery and innovation for a healthier life is what keeps
me going. It is my real drive." Reddy has delegated manufacturing
responsibilities to son Satish Reddy and son-in-law G.V. Prasad so that
he can concentrate more on research, though DRF has a Harvard-returned
chemist Dr A. Venkateswarlu as its president. "Clarity in thinking,
a time-targeted approach and easy access are the attributes of his leadership,"
says DRL's corporate affairs head D. Ravi Rao.
Significantly, all but one of DRL's production
units in India are in Reddy's home state. And politics is a big no. "I
treat it as a source of great amusement because if I take it seriously
I have to hang my head in shame."
For him, life is all about opportunities. That
is why he is an enemy of child labour. He has started the Livelihood Advancement
Business Schools as an answer to this social injustice. "We are doing
this in a sustained manner instead of looking it as charity. If a few
thousand of us can do this much to educate disadvantaged children, they
will learn to pull themselves out of the poverty trap," says Reddy.
Any regrets? "Time appears to be moving fast. Sometimes I feel I
am going up in an escalator all the time." Maybe he is, to reach
new heights. For a man who once envied the Bose speaker for being the
only world-class product with an Indian name, the journey is a prelude
to bigger Reddy days, R&D days.
Today, Reddy is wearing a new pair of spectacles
on the advice of a photographer that makes him more camera friendly. Going
by the limelight, the doctor may need more pairs.
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