05-29-2007, 09:30 PM
<b>Ramesh Pandey beats Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Unlike Jobs or Buffett, Pandey is not a billionaire and his company, based in South Brunswick, New Jersey, employs only 15 people. Six years ago, his company's stocks were sold for pennies and everyone asked him to quit.
But he persisted and worked to make a drug for the dreaded Sickle Cell Disease or Blackman's Disease, that kills mostly Blacks and Asians. This is the only non-toxic medicine for the disease, produced from a natural extract.
Readers of MarketWatch, promoted by DowJones, appreciated that work by according him the top spot.
Sickle Cell Disease is an inherited blood disorder caused by an abnormal hemoglobin called Sickle Hemoglobin and characterised by acute painful crises, organ damage, anemia and early death.
The company he set up in Nigeria has started producing the drug to fight the disease. "We have the capacity to produce the medicine only for Nigeria now. But we will soon expand production to benefit other African and Asian countries," Pandey said.
Pandey, who established the Ayurvedic University in New Jersey, has had a distinguished career in the biomedical sciences spanning over 40 years.
His life is an amazing story of ups and downs too. <b>A native of Uttaranchal</b>, he is one of the earliest immigrants to the United States, and <b>remembers days when people would not rent apartments to Indians.</b>
He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne as a post doctoral student in the late 1960s. Later, he worked for two years in India, where his expertise on antibiotics was used at Hindustan Antibiotics.
After returning to the US, he joined the National Cancer Institute. They wanted him to fix a problem with a cancer drug, which he did successfully. <b>He led a team which produced drugs that would cost $3-4 million per kg.</b>
He wanted to make them cheaply, but the several companies he approached for support were not interested.
Abbott Laboratories offered him a better position and he joined them in 1982. "One fine day that year, <b>the CEO of Lyphomed called me. He wanted me to help them produce Vancomycin, a major antibiotic. The patent of that medicine -- which was with Eli Lilly -- had expired," he said. He got a major share of XeChem, a company promoted by Lyphomed</b>.
Since Lyphomed had no research facility, he joined the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University to develop the medicine. When it was marketed three and a half years later, it became an instant success.
"<b>Within two weeks, the company got the amount it spent for developing the medicine. In one year, it made millions. I too got a few million, which wasn't bad,"</b> he said. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But when he was trying to make a cancer drug, the company that produced it earlier created roadblocks. It was a struggle to make Paclitaxel, a plant product used for the treatment of ovarian, breast, small cell lung cancers, AIDS related Kaposi's sarcoma and stomach cancer.
<b>Today, Xechem International holds over 20 patents for Paclitaxel, a cancer treatment medicine derived from the Yew tree.</b>
When Lyphmed was taken over by Fugisawa, he took control of Xechem in 1990. By April 1994, the company grew over 300 per cent and became public, trading on the Nasdaq small cap market and raised nearly $5.75 million. But by 1998, it wasn't doing well, and stock prices fell.
A meeting with an official delegation from Nigeria in 2001 changed the situation. Pandey was asked to set up a company in Nigeria. He was not sure till they spoke about Nicosan, a herbal medicine they were developing to fight Sickle Cell Disease. The word herbal changed his mind.
"I want to do it," he said. During a visit to Nigeria, Pandey agreed to build the pharmaceutical factory, Xechem Nigeria, in Abuja. The company started with borrowed equipment, and Pandey became the leading chemist and masterminded further development of the phyto-pharmaceutical product.
With the collaboration of the Nigerian government, he established a state-of-the-art research and production factory. Yet, there were many hurdles to cross in bringing the drug to the market, which included additional funding and keeping qualified people.
"We know of no existing non-toxic medicines available anywhere in the world for the effective treatment of SCD. Xechem will be in a truly unique position to offer viable and efficacious treatments for a percentage of approximately 4 million affected in Nigeria alone," Pandey said.
"We have been successful in bringing the SCD drug to the market in a relatively short period of time. Much work still lies ahead, but I am optimistic about the progress which will continue to accelerate," he said.
Pandey has served numerous universities, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. He has created and patented a diagnostic kit for space travelers. His recent work is mostly on research, development, and production of proprietary and generic drugs from traditional Chinese medicines and Ayurvedic Indian medicinal plants.
He also holds several US and international patents for biotechnology analysis and rare drug production processes, including Paclitaxel.
Pandey is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Antibiotics and of several professional societies including the American Chemical Society, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Pharmacognosy, American Society of Microbiology, Industrial Microbiolo-gy, Indian Science Congress and New York Academy of Sciences.
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But he persisted and worked to make a drug for the dreaded Sickle Cell Disease or Blackman's Disease, that kills mostly Blacks and Asians. This is the only non-toxic medicine for the disease, produced from a natural extract.
Readers of MarketWatch, promoted by DowJones, appreciated that work by according him the top spot.
Sickle Cell Disease is an inherited blood disorder caused by an abnormal hemoglobin called Sickle Hemoglobin and characterised by acute painful crises, organ damage, anemia and early death.
The company he set up in Nigeria has started producing the drug to fight the disease. "We have the capacity to produce the medicine only for Nigeria now. But we will soon expand production to benefit other African and Asian countries," Pandey said.
Pandey, who established the Ayurvedic University in New Jersey, has had a distinguished career in the biomedical sciences spanning over 40 years.
His life is an amazing story of ups and downs too. <b>A native of Uttaranchal</b>, he is one of the earliest immigrants to the United States, and <b>remembers days when people would not rent apartments to Indians.</b>
He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne as a post doctoral student in the late 1960s. Later, he worked for two years in India, where his expertise on antibiotics was used at Hindustan Antibiotics.
After returning to the US, he joined the National Cancer Institute. They wanted him to fix a problem with a cancer drug, which he did successfully. <b>He led a team which produced drugs that would cost $3-4 million per kg.</b>
He wanted to make them cheaply, but the several companies he approached for support were not interested.
Abbott Laboratories offered him a better position and he joined them in 1982. "One fine day that year, <b>the CEO of Lyphomed called me. He wanted me to help them produce Vancomycin, a major antibiotic. The patent of that medicine -- which was with Eli Lilly -- had expired," he said. He got a major share of XeChem, a company promoted by Lyphomed</b>.
Since Lyphomed had no research facility, he joined the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University to develop the medicine. When it was marketed three and a half years later, it became an instant success.
"<b>Within two weeks, the company got the amount it spent for developing the medicine. In one year, it made millions. I too got a few million, which wasn't bad,"</b> he said. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> But when he was trying to make a cancer drug, the company that produced it earlier created roadblocks. It was a struggle to make Paclitaxel, a plant product used for the treatment of ovarian, breast, small cell lung cancers, AIDS related Kaposi's sarcoma and stomach cancer.
<b>Today, Xechem International holds over 20 patents for Paclitaxel, a cancer treatment medicine derived from the Yew tree.</b>
When Lyphmed was taken over by Fugisawa, he took control of Xechem in 1990. By April 1994, the company grew over 300 per cent and became public, trading on the Nasdaq small cap market and raised nearly $5.75 million. But by 1998, it wasn't doing well, and stock prices fell.
A meeting with an official delegation from Nigeria in 2001 changed the situation. Pandey was asked to set up a company in Nigeria. He was not sure till they spoke about Nicosan, a herbal medicine they were developing to fight Sickle Cell Disease. The word herbal changed his mind.
"I want to do it," he said. During a visit to Nigeria, Pandey agreed to build the pharmaceutical factory, Xechem Nigeria, in Abuja. The company started with borrowed equipment, and Pandey became the leading chemist and masterminded further development of the phyto-pharmaceutical product.
With the collaboration of the Nigerian government, he established a state-of-the-art research and production factory. Yet, there were many hurdles to cross in bringing the drug to the market, which included additional funding and keeping qualified people.
"We know of no existing non-toxic medicines available anywhere in the world for the effective treatment of SCD. Xechem will be in a truly unique position to offer viable and efficacious treatments for a percentage of approximately 4 million affected in Nigeria alone," Pandey said.
"We have been successful in bringing the SCD drug to the market in a relatively short period of time. Much work still lies ahead, but I am optimistic about the progress which will continue to accelerate," he said.
Pandey has served numerous universities, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. He has created and patented a diagnostic kit for space travelers. His recent work is mostly on research, development, and production of proprietary and generic drugs from traditional Chinese medicines and Ayurvedic Indian medicinal plants.
He also holds several US and international patents for biotechnology analysis and rare drug production processes, including Paclitaxel.
Pandey is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Antibiotics and of several professional societies including the American Chemical Society, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Pharmacognosy, American Society of Microbiology, Industrial Microbiolo-gy, Indian Science Congress and New York Academy of Sciences.
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