Ashok Kumar MSC, PhD, FRSC

Dr. Kumar completed his M Sc in Chemistry from Kumaun University, now in Uttarakhand. He then decided to pursue his PhD in organic chemistry and joined Banaras Hindu University (BHU), but opted out three months later to do PhD from the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, under the guidance of the then director of the CDRI, Dr. Nityanand.

Dr. Kumar did his post-doctoral studies from the University of Sussex, UK. In 1984, Dr. Kumar decided to return to India and took up a job at the Imperial Chemical Laboratories (ICI), Mumbai. In 1994, he joined Lupin Labs where he was once again involved in the process development of small molecules.

In 2000, he joined IPCA Labs where he immediately focused on bringing about two changes – introducing a library and bringing in systems like a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which at that time was the costliest instrument.