Matrix Laboratories Limited has emerged as one of the major pharmaceutical players in India in a span of just five years. The company is currently pursuing global growth opportunities to evolve as a growing force in the global generic pharmaceutical industry.

The company is gearing up to meet this challenging task by committing itself to the institutionalization and is pleased to announce a few changes in the Executive Management structure to pursue the new growth strategies.

As part of these changes, Mr. N. Prasad, hitherto the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), will assume the Executive Chairman position to focus more on strategic issues. Mr. Prasad will be assisted by the newly formed Corporate Advisory Board (CAB) and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Mr. Prasad is the driving force behind the growth and the successful implementation of M&A strategy at Matrix, and has a proven track record in selection, integration and turning around the merged entities.

In order to focus on the operational issues of the company, Mr. Rajiv Malik, a new entrant to the Matrix family, has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Mr. Rajiv Malik, who will take charge as the CEO on 18th July, was associated with Sandoz, the world’s largest generics company and the generics arm of Novartis, as its Head of Global Development & Registration, based at Vienna, Austria.

At Sandoz, Mr. Malik was responsible for its worldwide product flow, global project management and M&A strategy, besides overall planning, strategizing, budgeting & resource allocation and necessary interaction with the customers. He was also responsible for overseeing the network of eight development centers of Sandoz worldwide with around 1,000 scientists and an annual budget of $ 250 million.

Mr. Malik had a 12 year stint with Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, during which he has served as the Head of Pharma Research, Head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Assistant Director for Product Development. Mr. Malik has about 60 formulation process patents and 10 publications in pharmaceutical journals to his credit.

As part of the latest changes, Dr. C. Satyanarayana, hitherto the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Mr. G. Prabhu Kishore, hitherto the Executive Vice President (Human Resources & Management services), have decided to relinquish their executive positions to join the newly formed Corporate Advisory Board (CAB). Mr. C. Ramakrishna, who was earlier the Executive Vice President (Corporate Finance & Corporate Services), and Mr. Mr. Sundara Rajan, who retired on 30th June as the Executive Vice President (Strategic Business Planning), also joined the Corporate Advisory Board (CAB).

The philosophy in forming the Corporate Advisory Board (CAB) is to utilize the expertise of the core team, who built Matrix, more at strategic and planning level than at the execution level.

Dr. C. Satyanarayana and Mr. C. Ramakrishna will continue to be on the Board of Directors the company.

“These latest initiatives are in line with the commitment to the shareholders to institutionalize the company. Now, with these changes, we have a strong Corporate Advisory team, Management team and Operating team in place. The appointment of Mr. Rajiv Malik as the CEO will add a lot of management depth to the company and will enable us to pursue the new growth strategies globally,” said Mr. N. Prasad.