ABOUT US

A molecule for every drug A drug for every disease

Imagine Together
Possible Together

People at Premas

We aspire to accelerate the delivery of new medicines to patients through building partnerships with biotech and pharmaceutical companies around the world. Our mission is to continuously make it sure, secure, faster, and cheaper for therapeutic pharmaceutical companies to develop novel solutions.

Premas Biotech was founded in 2005 with the vision of transforming drug development. We have acquired in-depth expertise and built state-of-the-art technology platforms to provide quality products that are second to none.

Premas employs a world-class team of more than 150 dedicated scientists and managers, who have successfully developed over 650 molecules. By fostering an innovative and inclusive culture, we have created an ecosystem for establishing productive, long-term partnerships with our clients.

We aim to be problem-solvers for our customers, by actively listening and being accessible 24/7 wherever we are needed. We innovate based on our customers’ needs. Our organization has the flexibility to adapt the way we do business to what each customer needs, supporting the development activities for companies of all sizes.

Leadership

  • Founder Chairman

    Avijit Das

    Avijit is an entrepreneur with several successful start-ups and business transformations to his credit. He is an Honors Graduate in Mechanical Engineering and worked with Tata Motors & Eicher before becoming Group Director at Duracell/Gillette managing international operations. He became an entrepreneur in 2003 following a management buyout of Eveready Pty Ltd in South Africa, where he diversified Eveready to form a spin-out company focused on renewable energy and manufacturing micro wind turbines. With a strong belief in technology and knowledge leadership, he led a group of young professionals and scientists to start Premas Biotech in 2006 and Premas Lifesciences in 2015. Avijit has three decades of leadership, management & business experience across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He is extremely passionate about creating work cultures that excel in innovation, ownership, and performance and has been a thought leader in change management and application. He has been a guest speaker for various management institutions, universities, and professional conferences and is associated with the chambers of commerce in several countries.

  • Co-founder & Managing Director

    Dr Prabuddha Kundu

    Prabuddha Kundu is a co-founder and the Managing Director at Premas Biotech. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, and has interests in protein engineering, bioprocess development, lean transformation, and emerging technologies. In his 20 years of professional experience, he has published more than 22 publications and ten patents, as well as speaking engagements at international conferences. Prabuddha began his career at Bio-Rad (India, Asia-Pacific), before moving to Ranbaxy (India) and then co-founded Premas in 2006. He is an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII)- Biotech Group, various institutions, and self-help groups on education, healthcare, and innovations.

  • Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer

    Dr Nupur Mehrotra

    Nupur is responsible for Premas' global operations and leads critical client projects. Nupur trained in Medicine from IGMC Shimla, completed her junior residency in dermatology from VMMC & Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, and her PGD in Bioinformatics from STG with training at JNU, New Delhi. She has 23 years of experience as a clinician, a researcher, and in leading operations. Nupur started her career as a practising physician and was associated with various National level disease prevention and eradication programs. She was a Senior Scientist at Ranbaxy, India, contributing to two IND programs before joining the cofounding team at Premas. Her main research interest has been infectious diseases, with a focus on Tuberculosis. She led the development of a diagnostic platform and associated nucleic acid isolation kits for difficult organisms at Premas and is a co-inventor on six patent applications.

  • Head - Global Business Development

    Vivek Chandra

    Vivek is a solution architect, always looking to address a problem at its roots and give sustainable and meaningful solutions. A Chemical Engineer with a Management qualification, his professional stint makes for a fine blend of technical and management skills. Starting from being a Shop-floor Engineer with Grasim Industries and Oswal Fertilizers, Vivek has traversed multiple domains in Sales and Marketing, Product Development & Management, Business Development, Strategy and M&A. Vivek has more than 20 years’ experience with Ranbaxy Allied Businesses, Avantor Performance Materials, followed with Global Pharma experience in Jubilant Lifesciences and Sentiss Pharmaceuticals. His expertise is in Idea-commercialization of opportunities, evaluating opportunities from wide range of cross functional dimensions. Having worked for more than 10 years in Private Equity setup, Vivek brings in capabilities in organization growth both in organic and inorganic means. As the co-founder and CEO of a startup in Diagnostics product company, NGIVD, Vivek has built an organization from scratch, keeping it bootstrapped as well as raise funds from HNIs and PE firms. At Premas, Vivek leads Global Business Development, steering organizational growth from new customers, new products and also new strategic partnerships. Building the Strategic Road Map for Premas, he is leading Premas’ quest to become an innovative Biotech company, with its own R&D pipeline, GMP manufacturing facilities as well as expanding geographical presence in key markets.

  • Head - Strategy & Lead Scientist

    Kajal Arora

    Kajal is the lead scientist at Premas and spearheads strategy and project feasibility activities. Kajal has over 25 years of experience as a Molecular Biologist. She began her carrier at Delhi University, followed by industry experience in companies including Ranbaxy laboratories. Kajal led a project developing the NEVA HIV and Typhoid diagnostic test as well as other drug discovery projects in therapeutic areas, including Oncology, Inflammation, and carrier proteins.

  • Antibody Development

    Theresa O'Keefe

    Theresa leads Premas’ antibody development, including the creation of biosimilar, biobetter, and novel biotherapeutic antibodies. She is also responsible for the Premas’ India source phage display library and assay. After receiving her Ph.D. at Tufts University (Boston, MA), Theresa trained at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge U.K., working with Drs. Michael Neuberger and Caesar Milstein. She has over 20 years of industry experience, working at companies including LeukoSite, Millennium Pharmaceutical, Takeda, Pfizer, and Mend Therapeutics. She is an inventor of multiple products that include Takeda’s Entyvio and 21 patents.

  • Business Development, USA

    Thomas Ryan

    Tom operates as the Executive Director of Business Development for North America for Premas Biotech. Tom has over 20 years of Business Development experience in the Life Sciences sector. He has provided pivotal strategic and logistical support to many initiatives with both large Pharmaceutical companies and small to medium size biotechnology companies. Tom has experience working in Protein Expression, Antibody development, Discovery, Preclinical, Laboratory, Diagnostics, and Regulatory.