BioPeople

Veeda appoints Venu Madhav as COO for India
Veeda Clinical Research has appointed Venu Madhav as the COO of its unit in India. He has 19 years of experience in clinical research. He has been associated with reputed companies such as Ranbaxy and Sun Pharma especially during the growth period of these organizations. Madhav carries rich experience in planning bioequivalence studies from pilot to pivotal stage for generic formulations. He has designed clinical, bioanalytical, pharmacokinetic and statistical aspects of bioavailability and bioequivalence studies.

Dr David U'Prichard joins Ocimum Biosolutions
Ocimum Biosolutions has appointed Dr David U'Prichard, president at Druid Consulting, to the board of directors. He holds several board positions in life sciences companies globally that include Life Technologies, Oxagen and Cyclacel. He is also a venture partner at Red Abbey Venture Partners.

Anu Acharya, CEO, Ocimum Biosolutions, said, “We are delighted to have Dr David U'Prichard on our board of directors. David's wealth of expertise in the biotech and pharma, venture capital and a strong academic background makes him a great source of wisdom for the road ahead for Ocimum.�

Bishwajeet Roy joins Finar Chemicals as COO
Bishwajeet Roy, a veteran chemical industry professional and former executive director of ThermoFisher Scientific has joined Finar Chemicals, an Ahmedabad-based manufacturer of laboratory and fine chemicals as the chief operating officer. He has over 31 years of industry experience and has held significant portfolios in his career.

Actis Biologics promotes Dr Gopal Dasika as CSO
Actis Biologics has promoted Dr Gopal Dasika to the position of chief scientific officer. He joined the company in 2009 as senior vice president of R&D, in place of Dr Ramani Aiyer, who had shifted to the US and has been associated with the US-arm of the company.

Prior to joining Actis, Dr Dasika worked as the head, Biology Research at Reliance Life Sciences. He has worked on the development of biosimilars, fusion proteins, monoclonal antibodies, and platform technology for protein expression. He is an adjunct faculty in biotechnology, University of Mumbai.

He was a great visionary leader
Subhash Bagaria will be remembered for his three decades of visionary leadership and his pioneering efforts in bringing and establishing world-class technologies, capabilities and infrastructure to India in diverse areas such as life sciences services for the research, development and production of biopharmaceutical drugs, validation and process development facilities, and contract manufacturing.

In 1986, he formed Millipore India, a joint venture with Millipore Corporation, US. Over the last two decades Bagaria had grown Millipore India into an undisputed market leader providing products and services that improve productivity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and in life sciences research.

As the chairman and MD of Kemwell, he transformed the company into a leading provider of formulations contract manufacturing and development services. Today, Kemwell has four manufacturing facilities in Bangalore and one facility in Uppsala, Sweden. Among Bagaria's philanthropic efforts were Charity Foundations that provided scholarships to deserving students and medical help to needy patients. The Foundation has set up the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bangalore, and also a Tibetan Medical Center in Bangalore.

"After working with him for over 26 years, I respect him both as a mentor and as an insightful business leader. Usually, Subhashji was far ahead of the times in anticipating the needs of the Indian biopharmaceutical industry. The several start-ups that he conceived, nurtured and grew over the years were successful in getting some of the best technologies in the area, accessible to the Indian biopharmaceutical industry. He backed his beliefs with all the investments required for building truly world-class facilities. As an astute business leader, he had a rare ability to be on top of market trends and market dynamics and insisted on proper market preparedness in terms of pro-activeness. The success of his enterprises and their pioneering contributions are evident to those who worked closely with him because he was usually media shy and self effacing"