Kallam Anji Reddy, founder of the country’s second largest drug-maker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd (DRL) and the face of the pharma industry in Andhra Pradesh, passed away here Friday following a prolonged illness. He was 73.
Anji Reddy had been unwell for the past few months from a lung disorder and was admitted to a private hospital about 10 days ago. He is survived by his wife K Samrajyam, son K Satish Reddy and daughter G Anuradha.
A pioneer of the Indian bulk drugs industry, Anji Reddy was not just an entrepreneur with uncanny business acumen but also a visionary who emphasised drug discovery -- the first Indian pharma company to do so -- and make them affordable to the common man. He made persistent efforts to discover new molecules to treat diabetes, cardiovascular disease, inflammation and infections.
A chemical engineer, Anji Reddy quit the state-run IDPL and followed his entrepreneurial instincts to set up Uniloids Ltd in 1976 and Standard Organics Ltd, which culminated in the formation of DRL in 1984. What started as a a generics company with an initial investment of Rs 25 lakh -- in a crowded field with several competitors -- evolved into a billion-dollar company with a turnover of more than Rs 7,000 crore, giving stiff competition to multinationals like Pfizer and GSK. Born in 1940 the son of a turmeric farmer in Tadepalli in Guntur district, Anji Reddy not only transformed the pharma industry, moving it away from being a copycat of existing formulations to becoming an innovator of new drugs.
By so doing, he emerged as a role model for other pharma enterprenuers. Companies like Divis Labs, Hetero Drugs, Matrix Labs are all founded by those who worked under Reddy’s stewardship during DRL’s early days.
He has been credited for turning the industry from overdependence on imports in the 1980s to self reliance in the 1990s and eventually into an export-oriented sector.
In yet another first, Reddy took DRL overseas, listing it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001 -- making it the first Asian pharma firm outside Japan to do so.
For Anji Reddy, charity went beyond writing cheques. He founded multiple not-for-profit outfits like the Naandi Foundation, the DRL Foundation and NICE to render service to the needy. When he was once asked if he was invited to an interaction with the legendary investor Warren Buffett during his India visit, he mockingly said, “We don’t need foreigners to tell us about charity.”
The government of India conferred the Padma Bhushan on Anji Reddy for his contribution to the pharmaceutical industry.
