Pankaj Ramanbhai Patel (born 1952/1953) is an Indian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businessman, and the chairman of

Zydus Lifesciences Zydus Lifesciences Limited, formerly known as Cadila Healthcare Limited, is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Ahmedabad, which is primarily engaged in the manufacture of generic drugs. It ranked 100th in the Fortu ...

, the fifth largest

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympto ...

in India.

Early life

Pankaj Patel is a

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

. Patel holds

Bachelor of Pharmacy A Bachelor of Pharmacy (abbreviated B Pharm or PharmB or BS Pharm) is a graduate academic degree in the field of pharmacy. In many countries, this degree is a prerequisite for registration to practice as a pharmacist. Since both PharmB and Phar ...

and

Master of Pharmacy The Master of Sciences of Pharmacy (MPharm) is the standard master's degree program in Pharmacy. It is the oldest honorable Diploma (Degree) authorized from the European Faculties of Pharmacy as it takes five years to complete. It is based on a c ...

degrees from

Gujarat University The Gujarat University is a public state university located at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The university is an affiliating university at the under-graduate level and a teaching university at the postgraduate level. It is accredited B++ by N ...

, as well as a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Science and Law from the

University of Mumbai The University of Mumbai is a collegiate university, collegiate, State university (India), state-owned, Public university, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the un ...

. After graduating, he joined Cadila Healthcare, which was founded by his father in 1952 to make vitamins.

Career

In 2017, he became the president of

FICCI The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) is a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in India. History Established in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi by Indian businessman G.D. Birla an ...

. He is the chairman of the board of governors of the

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata (IISER-K or IISER Kolkata) is an autonomous institute in science and education field located in Mohanpur near the town of Kalyani in Nadia, West Bengal, India. It was established by ...

and

Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar (IIT Bhubaneswar) is a public technical university established by the government of India in 2008, located at Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. The institute admits a students for bachelor's, master's progra ...

; a member of the board of governors and also the chairman of the finance committee of the

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad) is the world's number 1 business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The school has been accorded the status of an Institute of National Importance by Ministry of Human Resourc ...

; chairman of IIM Udaipur; member of the governing board of The Ahmedabad University, chairman of School of Life Sciences,

Ahmedabad University Ahmedabad University is a private, non-profit university in Gujarat, India, set up in 2009 by the Ahmedabad Education Society. It comprises three schools and seven centres with opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship. Ahmedabad Universi ...

; member of the board of management of the

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies SVKM's NMIMS is a private deemed university located in Mumbai. The University also has campuses at Shirpur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Indore and Navi Mumbai and two upcoming campuses in Dhule and Chandigarh. It has 17 constituent schools that offe ...

and executive chairman, vice president and trustee of the Gujarat Cancer Society and chairman of the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute. Patel was named the "Best Pharma Man of the year 2003" by the Foundation of Indian Industry and Economists in recognition of the growth of Cadila under his leadership. At that time, Patel predicted that Zydus Cadila would become the third-largest pharmaceutical company in India by 2005. However, the company's fortunes were reversed and Patel fell out of the list of richest Indians by 2005. He is the chairman of Zydus Hospitals, a large chain of hospitals in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

Personal life

He is married to Priti Patel, a daughter of Dr B D Patel. They have two children. Their son Dr Sharvil Patel is managing director of Cadila Healthcare Ltd, and is married to Meha. Their daughter Shivani is married to Pranav D Patel, son of Dushyant D Patel. In August 2012, Patel, along with Dinesh Patel, the chairman of Sintex Industries, purchased a Challenger-604 jet.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patel, Pankaj 1950s births Businesspeople in the pharmaceutical industry Indian billionaires Living people Businesspeople from Ahmedabad Gujarati people