NAME: Prasad Nimmagadda AGE: 44 years DESIGNATION: Executive Chairman GROUP: Matrix Laboratories

The media calls him N. Prasad, but he prefers it the other way around: Prasad N., short for Prasad Nimmagadda. This soft spoken cricket buff has been making waves recently. His company, the Rs 641-crore Matrix Laboratories, has just entered into an agreement to buy the $35-million (Rs 154-crore) Chinese drug maker Mchem. The rationale: Mchem will strengthen Matrix's supply chain and give it a beachhead in China for its aids drugs. Days earlier, it had picked up a 43 per stake in Swiss drug maker Explora. And in June-July, Matrix had taken over Belgian generics firm Docpharma for $263 million (Rs 1,157.2 crore), the largest global M&A play by an Indian pharma company. Incidentally, bt had listed Matrix among "20 companies to watch in 2005" in its edition dated December 5, 2004. But becoming a poster boy for the Indian pharma industry was the last thing on his mind 22 years ago, when he passed out of Delhi University with a Masters degree in physics. Getting a job was. He held a series of positions in various pharma companies before rising to become Managing Director of Vorin Laboratories at the age of 34. Along the way, in 1989, he picked up a degree in management from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. Prasad's big opportunity came in 2000 when he and some associates bought the sick Herren Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, and in May 2001 renamed it Matrix Laboratories.

What's his success mantra? "To succeed, one has to be very communicative, transparent, lead by example and be unselfish," he says. His vision for his company: "Make Matrix a respected Indian pharma company and grow as a business while doing everything to help save lives." There's also a dream of becoming a billion-dollar (Rs 4,400-crore) company, "but we haven't set any specific date for achieving this." Given his record of turning a sick Rs 45-crore company into a pharma powerhouse in four years flat, it'll probably happen sooner rather than later.