Startup mantra: Powering progress across pharma and life sciences
GPC Lifesciences aims to help India reduce its dependence on China for key drug starting material intermediaries
Retirement is generally a time when people hang up their boots and sit back to enjoy their sunset years. But for Purna Chandra Ray, retirement set them off on another journey with a mammoth task–to reduce India’s chemical imports from China. This is when GPC Lifesciences was founded in 2020.
This was not sheer audacity; it was his decades of experience working with pharmaceutical companies in various roles that made him acutely aware of the weak position in which China had placed India’s pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Says Ray, “China dominates our chemical and pharma industry mainly because they are leaders in the manufacture of intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Even to manufacture paracetamol, our pharma companies have to import intermediates from China. At every step, Indian pharmaceutical and chemical companies are dependent on China. So, when I retired, I thought why not work on this so that we can reduce our import bill?”
Refining the gap
“There’s a big gap between India’s pharmaceutical and speciality-chemical ecosystem. While the country possesses strong scientific talent, it has a persistent dependence on imported technologies and intermediates, particularly for complex chemistries. At the same time, many innovations struggled to move from laboratory scale to reliable commercial production. GPC Lifesciences was started to bridge this gap between process innovation and industrial reality.”
It seemed like a tall order. How would GPC Lifesciences do that? Says Ray, “The idea was rooted in practical experience. We wanted to build a company that approaches chemistry from a manufacturer’s perspective—focused on scalability, cost, safety, and regulatory compliance. Rather than developing chemistry for academic validation, we wanted to focus on developing processes that work consistently at plant scale and make commercial sense.”
His co-founder, Singh, who joined him in 2025 (also a retired pharma professional), explains, “In the pharma industry, most innovative branded drugs have traditionally come from Western countries, especially the US, Europe, and Japan, given that new drug molecule discovery is an expensive affair. These patented drugs are quite often unaffordable to most people. But in 1994, the Government of India passed a regulation that, if the same drug can be manufactured by a different process, then it stays out of the Intellectual Property Rights’ ambit.”
Singh explains that the government has also brought in another regulation that addresses orphan drugs. He says, “These are drugs that are used by a small percentage of the population, largely because the illness impacts a small number. Many genetic diseases fall in this category. Often, the treatment for such diseases as Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) can go up to lakhs of rupees per month, which makes it unaffordable to most.” ‘Developing cheaper processes to manufacture drugs that help patients’ was the goal of GPC Lifesciences.
Ray, having a doctorate in organic chemistry, knew how chemicals worked and had ideas on how to create new processes and molecules that could help the Indian pharmaceutical industry. But before action could follow thought, he had to put down hard cash. And that money was all that he had saved for his old age. Driven by unwavering determination, he even risked investing his retirement funds to nurture his goal. “I used ₹50 lakh of my savings to start GPC Lifesciences in 2020.”
Getting down to work
Ray had an idea of how to develop certain molecules and processes that could help the pharma industry. I started work on para-aminophenol (PAP), which is an intermediary used to manufacture the most commonly used paracetamol. To do that, I needed a setup which I did not have and could not afford. Undaunted by the lack of a research lab, Ray found out about NCL’s Innovation Park. Says he, “So I tied up with Venture Centre that had labs, clean rooms and all the facilities one needs to run a process or develop cost-effective processes for generic molecules.”
Processes need raw materials, and most of it for the chemical industry comes from petroleum by products. Here, Ray got lucky. He says, “I had several contacts in the industry during my professional years, so I could procure petrochemical waste from a petrochemical company based in the northern part of India.” He started from benzene, which is highly carcinogenic, but when it is converted to its derivative or intermediary, it is no longer carcinogenic. Says Ray, “The conversion of benzene to PAP is a three-step process that is high on energy consumption, manpower and chemicals.” He started with PAP and sees “how efficiently I can make it compete with China.” Besides PAP, Ray identified metformin as well. Using the labs at NCL Innovation Park, Ray had, by the end of three years, succeeded in making 10 molecules (paracetamol, acotiamide, linagliptin and their intermediates) and the process to manufacture it.
Simply put, GPC Lifesciences redesigned chemical processes to make them safer, cheaper, and easier to manufacture on a large scale. Says Ray, “Often this involves reducing the number of steps, replacing expensive or imported materials with locally available alternatives, and improving reaction efficiency. The goal is to ensure that what works in a laboratory flask also works in a large industrial reactor.”
Challenges
Despite using his retirement savings, the company needed more funds to scale up. Despite having applied for government grants, he has failed. Says Singh, “This year we have filed three applications for funds to support our research and development activities. I hope we receive some help. The problem is multi-fold. Unlike most start-ups, GPC Lifesciences is confident about the market. Says Ray, “Both founders are pharma industry veterans and have a large network of companies that we can tap into for sales.” Like they did with their colleague Prof Ghosh of IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, who was their first customer. Says Ray, “They used our chemical azo derivative compound for their semiconductors.” Another customer (he cannot reveal the name) bought the process to use benzene and its derivatives to make fine chemicals. We have access to markets but lack the corresponding scale to match it.”
Funds
After investing ₹50 lakh, Ray raised ₹1.22 crore in revenue last financial year. Says he, “This year we intend to have revenues of ₹3 crore. We are also looking to raise funds via the MSME grant/ Start-up India Funds/ Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma (PRIP) scheme about ₹5 crore that, will enable us to purchase basic analytical instruments such as High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Gas Chromatography (GC), and Karl Fischer (KF) titration capabilities, so we need not outsource these tasks to outsiders and become more efficient, increase manpower and rental lab space.”
The future
Says Ray, “There is a lot to do in the domestic market, going to the US is not on the cards as of now. But we do plan to target Southeast Asian countries and the 54 Islamic countries, as they urgently need to lower the cost of medicines. Later on, I may get into regulated markets like the US, but not yet.” Their passion and dedication to their cause can beat any young man, and given their journey so far looks like they will manage to meet their audacious goal. As Ray puts it, “We’re targeting about 10% reduction in imports of four molecules from other countries. For the duo, age is just a number, truly.”
