Make in India - Emerging Entrepreneur Awards

Perfect Chemistry
When Satya Vadlamani, 51, left a cushy job at Ajanta Pharma in 1997 to set up a trading company for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), she wanted to spend more time with her family. But her firm, called Murli Krishna Exports then, kept her busier than before. In 2004, the electrical and electronics engineer teamed up with analytical chemistry expert Vijay Shastri, to manufacture pellets, the process of coating a drug to enhance its effectiveness and reduce side-effects. The company used water instead of the older solvent-based technology, making the pellets safer for consumption. It wasn’t easy. Family pressures apart, setting up a plant back then was difficult. “It’s easy to take shortcuts,”she says, “but it wasn’t what I wanted.” Today, the company has 128 employees on its rolls and 60 on contract. Its plant at Ranjangaon near Pune complies with good manufacturing practices as per WHO and EU guidelines. The company earned Rs 42 crore in revenues in 2015-16 and supplies to 64 firms in 18 countries.