Servicing the Bio-IT sector

SPOTLIGHT: Anuradha Acharya, Ocimum Biosolutions' founder, plans to turn it into $100 million company by 2010.

A graduate in technology with a Master of Science in physics - with a wide range of degrees to her credit, this young entrepreneur from Hyderabad may seem like someone who has checked out different things before finding her calling.

But that has not stopped Anuradha Acharya of Ocimum Bio-solutions from experimenting. Acharya, the chief executive officer of Ocimum, a $ 3 million life sciences R&D enabling company, has plans to add an MBA to her already impressive credentials. "Later, probably from Harvard....," she muses.

Acharya was born in a Marwadi family in Rajasthan. "But my family was totally into academics, though I always had an entrepreneurial streak. My father used to pay us for small chores around the house and I used to do a lot them, from painting chairs to ironing clothes, just to earn that extra rupee," she says.

Not that academics was not her cup of tea. Acharya did her graduation from IIT-Kharagpur, and had decided right then to set up her own business.

So she joined companies like Mantiss Information and SEI Information Technology to learn the tricks of running an organisation.

Later, P Sujata, a friend and a co-founder of Ocimum with over 15 years of experience in molecular biology and biotechnology, helped her zero in on the bioinformatics sector.

Using their personal funds, Acharya and her husband set up Ocimum in 2000. "But the going was tough as we could find very few people with a background in life sciences and IT," reminisces Acharya.

Having trained its sights on Bio-IT, micro-arrays and research services, Ocimum today has more than 200 clients including Ranbaxy and Dow AgroSciences.

It bagged the Nasscom IT innovation award 2005, and was ranked 55 in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia-Pacific 2005 list.

Ocimum is now trying to raise $5.5 million to acquire other promising start-ups in the sector. "By 2010, I want Ocimum to be a $100 million company," says Acharya. "And a billion dollar company sometime later."