Yusuf Hamied

Yusuf Khwaja Hamied is chairman of Cipla, a company founded by his father Khwaja Abdul Hamied.

Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, Yusuf Hamied was raised in Mumbai. His Indian Muslim father and Russophone Jewish mother met in Berlin, where they both were graduate students. He is a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Christ's College, Cambridge.

He is an alumnus of the Cathedral and John Connon School. He is affectionately called Yuku by his close friends. He is fond of Western Classical music and has been close friends with internationally-famous conductor Zubin Mehta since boyhood.

Hamied fought giant Western pharmaceutical companies in order to to provide generic AIDS drugs to people in poor countries. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2005.

<blockquote>"Mr. Hamied comes by this mix of motivations—profit, social conscience and nationalism—by birthright. His father was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi's brand of Indian nationalism whose family chipped in to send him to study chemistry in England, India's colonial master, in 1924. Instead, he changed ships and went to Germany, then the world's leader in chemicals. On a Berlin lake, he met a Lithuanian Jewish socialist -- Mr. Hamied's mother. They fled as Germany was shifting into Nazi hands, and the Chemical, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Laboratories, later known as Cipla, was founded in 1935."-- Selling Cheap 'Generic' Drugs, India's Copycats Irk Industry, Donald G. McNeil,...
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