I naturally slipped into a pensive state when I got a mail yesterday from a colleague working out of Hyderabad that Dr.Anji Reddy of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has passed away. The organization he has built is a growing customer for us, and I’ve always been captivated by the energy, innovation and buzz I feel when I meet with them. I’ve never met Dr. Reddy but have heard and read about him. It takes a man of vision to build a great business and a lasting organization.

Photo Courtesy: www.drreddys.com

Dr. Reddy’s chosen path started with Generics and Active Ingredients and he has built a large and growing organization around innovation and process efficiencies in Pharmaceuticals. There are many milestones along the impressive progress of Dr. Reddy’s Labs that serves as an inspiration to an entire industry in Hyderabad, India and a lot of other emerging markets, including being the first Asian Pharma company (outside Japan) to list in NYSE in 2001, becoming the first Indian company to out-license an original molecule to Novo Nordisk and others. Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an exciting domain and Dr. Reddy as a scientist-entrepreneur was a leading practictioner who has inspired and continues to inspire many an aspiring entrepreneur. He leaves the organizations in the hands of capable leaders and a strong management structure.

Starting with reverse engineering to taking cautious first steps towards New Chemical Entities to revving up to high growth on the strength of a global market in transition, the organization Dr. Reddy built is going to become more visible on the global stage. As the healthcare industry gets transformed worldwide, there will be a lot of contribution in lowering the cost of healthcare by Indian generics players as well as innovation from this eco-system. And every time a progress is made somewhere in the background will be the presence of Dr.Reddy’s spirit. Here is signing off with respects to this great soul.