Obituary: India loses R&D champion as Dr Anji Reddy dies aged 72

"I hate the term Third World country and maybe if we produce 30 Merck-like companies in India then this nomenclature will be dropped," Dr Anji Reddy, founder and chairman of Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), once said at a lecture in Mumbai. This was quite characteristic of the man who always believed Indian firms and R&D are world class and that India would one day emerge as a nucleus of drug discovery.