Yusuf Hamied: leader in the Indian generic drug industry

Abstract

When Mahatma Gandhi visited Khwaja Abdul Hamied, founder of the Chemical, Industrial and Chemical Laboratories in Mumbai in 1939, Hamied's son Yusuf was barely 3 years of age, and has no recollection of this exalted occasion. Today, as Non-Executive Chairman of the company now known as CIPLA, Yusuf Hamied keeps a close watch on his family's generic drugs giant, which turns over US$2 billion annually and employs around 26 000 people in India and several other locations worldwide. "We are big on volume, but low on cost. If we sold our drugs at US prices we would be five times larger than Pfizer", he says.