About Us

Akhil Ravi is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services.

Before joining Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories on February 1, 2022, Akhil has served as Head of strategy for services and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), Head of API sales in Europe, and as plant head at one of Dr. Reddy’s manufacturing sites.

Akhil holds a B.Tech degree in Chemical engineering from IIT Bombay and an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB).

Kapil Choudhury is Global Head of Sales and Business Development for Aurigene and is responsible for shaping the commercial strategy for Aurigene. Kapil has nearly two decades of experience in Strategy, R&D + Manufacturing Operations, Partnerships and Country Management across Pharma, Services and Consulting spaces.

Prior to joining Aurigene, Kapil was Global Head of Business Development, Alliance Management Portfolio and Product Management at Dr. Reddy’s. Kapil led Dr. Reddy’s global covid response team, which was responsible for bringing full spectrum of COVID solutions to India, including India’s third approved Viral Vector Platform based vaccine and a concurrent effort along with Merck to bring Molnupiravir to India. Kapil was awarded ET Business Leader of the year by world HRD congress in 2021 for his notable contributions for fighting COVID. Kapil also worked as engagement manager at IQVIA prior to joining Dr. Reddy’s.

Kapil is alumnus of prestigious Fergusson College, India and INSEAD Business School, France. Kapil is a member of Healthcare Academic advisory committee of IIM, IIT and AIIMS Jammu. Kapil also frequently mentors students at SOIL & IIFT and is passionate about youth skill development from rural and semi urban centers of India.

Dr. Gayathri Ramaswamy is the Global Head of Discovery Services at Aurigene.

Dr. Gayathri joined us from Intergalactic Therapeutics, where she served as Vice President & Head of Drug Discovery and Disease Biology. Prior to Intergalactic, she held leadership positions at Biogen and Pfizer.

Dr. Gayathri has extensive experience in several therapeutic areas including neuroscience and ophthalmology, across different modalities such as small molecule, large molecule, and non-viral gene therapy. She is an expert in brain-lipid metabolism, apolipoprotein E and its role in Alzheimer’s disease.

Gayathri holds a PhD in Biochemistry St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, University of Tennessee, Memphis, and completed her post-doctoral training at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Diseases, University of California, San Francisco. She currently serves as a Scientific Advisory Board member for a lipid-biology focused start-up biotech based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Chetan received his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from State University of New York at Buffalo and has over 20 years of experience in synthetic, process and medicinal chemistry in industries spanning across the globe. Chetan has experience in leading multi-disciplinary discovery and developmental teams that have delivered several preclinical and clinical candidates. He has experience in working with various target classes including Proteases, Kinases, NHR’s and Epigenetics. across different therapeutic areas of Oncology, Pain and Inflammation and Metabolic disorders. He has more than 30 patents and publications to his credit and is affiliated with Aurigene since April 2007.

Baburaj has three decades of experience in the areas of Research and Development, Technology transfer and Manufacturing of small molecules. Prior to joining Aurigene, Baburaj has worked with different renowned organizations. In his last role, he was responsible for delivering development programs for clinical trials. He is expert in the areas of integrated discovery and development services and successfully commercialized several NCEs starting from discovery. In his previous role, he has played an important role in driving strategy and developing capabilities in the CDMO business.

He also has an experience in the development and manufacturing of aroma chemicals, natural products and agrochemicals. He holds a master’s degree in Science and Business Administration from University of Calicut and University of Madras respectively.

Sangamesh received his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from Gulbarga University, Kalaburgi, Karnataka. He has over two decades of synthetic and medicinal chemistry research experience with several renowned indian pharma companies. Sangamesh has extensive experience in drug discovery projects in metabolic disorders, inflammation, oncology and neuroscience areas. Sangamesh has co-authored 14 publications in peer-reviewed journals and co-invented 12 patents.

Dr. Priyaranjan Pattanaik heads the NBE division at Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services Limited, engaged with discovery and development of large molecule drugs and critical bio-reagents. Priyaranjan is a structural biologist with ~18 years of experience in industry and academia. Priyaranjan has led many large molecule discovery collaborations with innovator pharma companies involving antibodies, ADC, mRNA and bi-specific modalities that have resulted in development and clinical candidates. Priyaranjan is passionate about new technologies and their application in accelerating progression of drug candidates from concept to clinic. As a business leader engaged with global clientele, Priyaranjan believes in a people-centric approach to successful collaborations underpinned by transparent communication, high integrity and a shared vision of bringing new therapies to patients faster and in a cost effective way.

Priyaranjan received his Ph. D from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore. He carried out post-doctoral research in Medical School of Case Western Reserve University at Cleveland, Ohio, USA on structure based NCE discovery against bacterial antibiotic resistance.

Ashutosh Kotwal is a Head HR and Admin with Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services Ltd. In the current role he is responsible to formulate HR strategy aligned to organization strategy and create performance driven culture in the organization. Ashutosh has more than 20 years of rich experience spread across various sectors like pharmaceutical, FMCG and engineering. He brings with him expertise in providing HR leadership at strategic as well as operations level in the areas of HR business partnering, talent and performance management, compensation and benefits and employee relations. He has spearheaded various assignments or projects like setting up HR business partnering organization for India commercial organization, organization restructuring, digitalization of employee life cycle operations, talent management, restructuring of compensation and benefits across multiple organizations, setting up HRIS system for multi divisional organization etc. Before taking up the current role, Ashutosh was heading all HR CoEs for global manufacturing operations for Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. Prior to joining Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ashutosh was associated with different organizations where he has handled several roles with increasing responsibility. Ashutosh has a master’s degree in Labor Studies from MILS, Mumbai

Vinoth has over 21 years of experience in supply chain operations which includes strategic sourcing, contract manufacturing, material management and technology transfer activities across pharmaceutical industries. Vinoth is a chemical engineer and holds MBA in pharma management and operations management. He has also obtained PhD in management (SCM). He has many publications in peer reviewed journals to his credit.

Atul has 14+ years of rich experience in business finance, investments, and financial performance management across pharmaceutical industry as well as private equity organizations. Atul holds MBA Finance from International Management Institute and B Tech Electronics from Institute of Technology Management. Atul is responsible for driving finance, legal and compliance function at Aurigene.

PVR joins us from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and has over 15 years of experience spanning across various functions including business strategy and planning, R and D, business development, alliance management and management consulting.

Before moving to Aurigene, he was part of Dr. Reddy’s commercial API team as the head of BD and portfolio management. PVR holds PGDM from IIM Kozhikode and B Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras.

Satyanarayan is an EHS and sustainability professional with 19 years of cross industry experience. Satyanarayan is a Chemical engineer and holds advanced diploma in Industrial Safety from Mumbai University. He is a PMP certified professional and has professional certifications in GMMP, Lean Six Sigma, Dupont safety training and Ergonomics.

Suresh has 22+ years of rich experience in drug discovery and functional service. In his past roles, he has worked in leadership roles in in vivo Pharmacology and Toxicology fields. Suresh holds PhD from Department of Animal Sciences - University of Hyderabad and Masters in Sciences - Biotechnology, SV University Tirupathi.

Suresh is responsible for driving Discovery Biology Services team to achieve long term and short term organizational priorities.

Rajesh joins Aurigene from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and has over 21+ years of rich experience in the industry. Before moving to Aurigene, he was part of API commercial team and was working as a Program Manager- API Plus.

Rajesh holds Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Technology from University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kakatiya University and M. Pharm (Pharmaceutics) from BITS Pilani, Rajasthan.

Rajesh is responsible for heading the FR and D Space to ensure delivery of formulation development and technology transfer projects and achieve long term and short term organizational priorities.