Women head Life Sciences in India

Unlike in the west, the Life sciences sector in India is largely driven by women. Companies like Biocon, Piramal Healthcare, Lupin, Apollo Enterprises, Bharat Biotech, Avesthagen Ltd etc. are all headed by women. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the founder of Biocon told New Indian Express “In the West, pharma companies are professional entities and, as a result, the sector continues to be an old boys’ club. In contrast, the Indian life sciences sector (be it pharma, biotech or healthcare services) is largely promoter-driven and you see women steering it from the front”.

Apart from Shaw, other women who are leading the top Life Sciences’ companies are, Vinita Gupta, Swati Piramal, Prita Reddy and Sangeetha Reddy, Suchitra Ella and Villoo Morawala Patel.

According to a report by New Indian Express, it takes at least more than seven years to produce a new drug, which means the people working in the industry need to be passionate, committed and patient. The nature of the required work is knowledge driven and hence there is not much discrimination on that level. Moorthy K Uppaluri, CEO, Randstand, an HR services firm told New Indian Express, “…areas such as quality assurance and human resources are completely managed by female employees. Other departments like business development, clinical operations, data management and medical affairs are either led by women or have female employees significantly outnumbering their male counterparts.”

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At Karmic Life, a contract and clinical research organization, the ratio of male to female employees is 7:8, whereas at Quintiles India another contract research organization, its 12:13, for which it won the highest percentage of women employer award by Software Technology Parks of India in 2012.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: New Indian Express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/news/Women-Promoters-Rule-Indias-Life-Sciences-Sector-say-Industry-Experts/2014/03/09/article2098292.ece