Ajit Kamath was born on 12-12-1969. His father Sri Annu Kamath was a banker and mother Smt. Anuradha Kamath a housewife.
A family man Dr. Ajit Kamath stays with his parents even now and also stresses that it has made him a better person.
Dr. Kamath shares that he had to change 7 schools from the first grade to the 10th grade due to the nature of his father’s job. Though he has travelled and stayed in various places all over the nation and the world, he is very fond of his native – Mulky and makes it a point to visit his hometown frequently.
Speaking about his sporting passion, Dr. Kamath shares that Boxing was his first love and he took boxing very seriously during his college days. One more sport that he is fond of is cricket. He is an allrounder and looks forward to opportunities to spend time on the cricket field.
Dr. Ajit Kamath reaches the office by 7:00 am in the morning as he believes that he can get 5 hours’ worth work done in 2 hours. He says ‘insecurity’, the fear of losing out to the competition, changes in the regulatory environment and growing competition from China are some of the biggest source of his concerns.
Dr. Ajit Kamath took over the reins of Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. in 1998 and has achieved the pinnacle of success in relatively short period of time. Arch Group of Companies lead by Dr. Ajit Kamath has interests in Pharmaceuticals, Water Purification Systems, Diagnostics Centers and Mining.
Son of a banker, Dr. Ajit Kamath started his career at the tender age of 20. He joined a big industrial concern as an employee. By 22, he dreamt of becoming a boss rather than working under one. He thus started a financial services firm – Arch Impex Ltd. to help the dreamers turn their dreams into reality. An eternal optimist Dr. Kamath funded various types of projects from his financial services company. He ensured that capital was never a constraint to the budding entrepreneurs of the nation
Though he had no formal education in science, he had to take over a Pharma company in 1998 as the erstwhile owner of the company had taken a lot of money as debt. The erstwhile owner was a friend who lost his life due to brain hemorrhage. Dr. Kamath, a believer, took over the company and has been successfully managing it from the past 30 years.
Dr. Kamath had established the Financial Services Ltd. firm in 1992 and within 6 years he took over the reins of the pharma company. Though he was initially worried about leading the company as he was from a non-science background, he took comfort in the fact that other major pharma companies like Ranbaxy and Sun Pharma Ltd. were also lead by commerce graduates.
Dr. Ajit Kamath proudly proclaims – pharma is the forever sunrise industry. Dr. Ajit Kamath says he owes the success of Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. to taking over the stressed companies and turning them around. Dr. Kamath states that he took over 9 stressed companies and was successful in turning them around in a short span of time.
In 2010, the company achieved a major milestone, when it was included in the list of fortune company.
Dr. Kamath works tirelessly in his company with a dream of achieving self-reliance in the pharma space. He speaks passionately about reducing the dependence on China as he believes that the country has the necessary talent to achieve unimaginable success in the field.
Dr. Kamath says that the Government in power at the center has a business-friendly approach and gives a lot of importance to achieving independence in all the fields possible. He says it has become much easier to deal with the government and if the support continues to grow over the years, there is nothing that can stop Indians from achieving entrepreneurial success like their counterparts from the western world.
As an entrepreneur, Dr. Kamath’s heart swelled with pride during one of his visit to the US when he observed that 8 out of 10 generic medicine on the shelf were manufactured in India. He says that success is inevitable for a country like India as Indians are leading not only the major companies in the world but also the Research & Development wing of Multinational Company’s across the globe. The talent pool of India is such vibrant and kicking that in the years to come major innovation in many fields including pharma will come from our nation. The only ‘resource’ that he finds to be scarce to achieve large scale success in the field of pharma is ‘capital’. He shares that it requires at least 8 billion US dollars to develop a drug and India at present does not have that kind of resources available. But overtime as in the field of Information Technology and delivery startups, capital will flow into Pharmaceutical industry and India will be able to develop drugs on its own.
He says the success of developing several critical and life saving drugs at Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. has made him a big believer in the India growth story. Sharing the success of the company in developing drugs he states that the company has developed drugs related to curing cardiac issues, anti-cancer, anti-retroviral (for AIDS), and others.
In a virtual ceremony commemorating 73 years of the Republic of India, Dr. Ajit Kamath, Promoter and Managing Director of Arch Pharmalabs Ltd, was conferred an ” Honorary Doctorate in Health Administration” by the prestigious University The Indian Institute of Technical Research and Business Studies for his exemplary contribution of over 30 years in the field of Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Ajit Kamath’s company – Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. has been able to achieve outstanding success as they have been able to develop molecules that have proven to save lives. Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. has developed two life-saving critical medicine and 7 molecules independently. The production of these medicines will never stop even if China stops exporting raw materials to India.
Dr. Ajit Kamath took over the reins of Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. in 1998 and has achieved the pinnacle of success in a relatively short period of time. Arch Group of Companies lead by Dr. Ajit Kamath has interests in Pharmaceuticals, Water Purification Systems, Diagnostics Centers, and Mining.
Our manufacturing facilities are designed to manufacture a variety of APIs and Intermediates
using a combination of processes.
Water Purifier made using green technology that harvests water from the humidity in the air.
A world-class integrated health system that ensures excellence in health and healthcare for all as a globally recognized destination for healthcare.
We achieve by adopting strategies for sustainable mining through measuring, monitoring and managing the carbon footprint of all mining operations.
First-Gen Entrepreneur, Ajit Kamath says one can achieve unimaginable success only by investing in people. Advising the budding entrepreneurs, he recommends hiring more qualified and intelligent people as it will help in achieving success at the earliest. Dr. Kamath says if he can go back in time, he would hire more qualified people as it would have given him time to focus on managing the critical aspects of running a business rather than taking care of day-to-day operations.
Awards and Accolades
Dr. Kamath has been awarded with the prestigious doctorate degree and is the Honorary Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkley.
Arch Pharmalabs Ltd. was awarded as the Emerging Company by CNBC.
Dr. Ajit Kamath was awarded the ‘Young Turk’ award by CNBC.
He also was awarded with Emerging India Award – Leading Pharma Company from CNBC.
It is rare to find a person like Dr. Ajit Kamath in modern times. Despite achieving such huge success in life he still lives a very simple life and thus is looked up to as an inspiration to the budding entrepreneurs.