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Kal Ramnarayan
Kal Ramnarayan

Kal Ramnarayan

Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer

Sapient Discovery

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Kal Ramnarayan is a member of:

Initiative to develop a country
Help students our future productive citizens to achieve more in their academics. This by giving lectures of what they have achieved in their respective fields, interacting with them in some projects or mentoring them in other ways.

Forge some relationships with the universities/colleges where they studied to help improve curriculum and making sure the latest advances are brought to the attention of the students.

Teach the less knowledgeable citizens and students the use of internet to gain meaningful information on things of interest to them and have them learn more in their field.

If the professionals are fortunate enough to have more financial resources donate to educational causes, help causes that fight for women's rights, help needy children and orphans and of course help their favorite temples, churches or mosques.

While it is true that people have to develop and prosper on their own, when you are at the bottom it is very hard to come up on your own, so help from top is good!
My role model
One of my previous bosses Dr. Edward Maggio. He is serial Entrepreneur who has founded several companies. He never gives up, always positive always optimistic. Works hard and never afraid to take up a new role!
Qualities needed to become a successful leader
Patience: To deal with multiple people with multiple personalities. To deal with the fortunate and the less fortunate people. To deal with the rules and regulations of the governmental systems.
Perseverance: To be succeed in what one is trying to do or achieve. Be it student trying to get the next degree, a scientist trying to get to next level in the organization or a business person trying to close the next best deal!

Balance the family life with professional life to keep your family happy, yet achieving your professional goals.

Be kind to the people reporting to you, yet do not get taken in by people who pretend to work and who want to hover around you to get your attention.

Respect knowledge where ever it comes from.

Respect age and experience.

Be religious, but no superstition!

Motivate the people working for you, yet be firm in your demands of what they need to do.

Review the performance of the people working under you to set up expectations.
Degree that I recommend
This is a hard one to answer in this environment especially in biotechnology field!
Many Ph.D. and M.S. people with and without experience are finding it very hard to find jobs both in academia and industry especially in the USA. Things seem to be improving a bit, but very slowly. Many jobs have simply vanished and may never come back.

However there seem to be still a demand for Ph.D. and M.S. level people in India and China. Which is good.

One good way to go may be is to have a master's degree in the field of interest get a job and in parallel pursue a MBA or or another higher degree.
Important decision
In the job front, continue in the academic field or jump to commercial field of biotechnology. Decided to go the commercial route and ended up as a biotechnology entrepreneur.

In one of the previous company, how can I meet the corporate goals with keeping the team members happy and employed? A tough decision that one is forced to make in commercial biotechnology enterprises, since revenue model shifts periodically and one has to put the company before its "people". I always found a balance to keep my best performing people in the company, meet the corporate goals and weed out non performing or under-performing personnel.

When the first of the two companies I was working for (ImmunoPharmaceutics and Structural Bioinformatics) were sold, I had the opportunity to be part of the companies that purchased these entities, I had to make a decision as to do something on my own or go with them. I decided to go my own way and ended up starting Sapient Discovery and Focus Synthesis.
Ensuring success
Work hard at the company to bring more customers, keep existing customers happy and keep employees happy.

Constantly scan the literature and internet on the latest moves by the big pharma companies, biotechnology companies and Contract Research Organizations to see what new things they are looking for or doing.

Follow the biotechnology developments in India and China that pose severe challenges to the biotechnology service industry in the USA, to see what are their new business models and how we can adapt in the USA to stay competitive.

Keep current with the published scientific work in the field of biotechnology, drug discovery and disease research.

Follow the stem cells developments particularly to discover new compounds to modulate stem cells to find cures for diseases.

Attend conferences and symposiums to network with the peers and other scientists from rest of the world.
Couple of years from now
Make Sapient Discovery successful, start a stem cells based company.

I strongly feel stem cells field will be playing a crucial role in disease management and disease treatments. I feel there is a strong potential for manufacturing and distributing reagents for stem cells research, discovery and manufacture of small molecules that modulate stem cells in some way or the other.

The other area of interest for me is to discover compounds that could be developed into drugs based on biomarker proteins being discovered. These could aid in personalized medicine tailored to specific sample population. My experience in drug design against protein targets will be a valuable asset for me to undertake this area of research.
My strongest skill
Good Team leader, Ability to think fast and adapt fast to changing environment. Understand and work with both Indian and Western scientists and business people. Scientific business development. Very good domain knowledge and strong project management skills.
Brief description about me
Just an ordinary human being. Very interested in biotechnology and the field of drug discovery. Love gardening, cooking and music. Am a board member in the Indian Fine Arts community here in San diego. Love to cook any type of vegetarian food. Love to grow tropical fruits, flowers and vegetables. Have traveled extensively and continue to do so.
More about myself
I feel my experience in working in the US and managing multiple companies will be a good asset to any Indian company in the field of biotechnology to forge collaboration with me to meet their corporate goals in terms of expanding in the USA or in India.
My achievements
Happily married for 26 years, father of two beautiful daughters, have good friends. Professionally seen the best and the worst of biotechnology field.
My family background
Came from middle class family from India. Loving father and mother who are no more. Have wonderful sister with whom I talk every day twice a day! One brother in India. I am married to a computer science professional and have two beautiful daughters! Have two great nieces living here in the west!
Influenced by
My brother-in-law (sister's husband) is my role model. He came up the against all odds to get a Ph.D. in Physics then became a DAAD fellow in Germany and worked in reputed labs around the world.
He still reads a lot, helps out students and he is a great teacher. He also predicted the internet will go a long way in educating our children and indeed it has. There is so much you can learn now on the internet that will aid your academic development.

He taught me hard work, respect and patience!
Important lesson learned
If a professional environment you are working in, seem to be hostile, do not stay there, quit immediately and find something else to do. Hostile environment drains your energy and creativity.
Thoughts on Education system of our country
I got educated in India. So no major complaints. I think the system can do more to pick and reward the talented students. Help them achieve more in their academic area by facilitating access to more books, computers, etc. Upgrade the syllabus to add more modern developments in the scientific fields. Improve the knowledge of spoken and written english.
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