Khwaja Abdul Hamied

Dr. K.A. Hamied was a Science Graduate from the Allahabad University and a M.A., Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin (also known as Berlin University); he was a former founder professor along with Dr. Zakir Husain of the Jamia Milia Islamia in Aligarh, which is now based in Delhi. Dr. Hamied was an honorary professor and a member of the executive council of the Aligarh University, member of the Senate of Bombay University and a fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, UK. He was also a member of the Bombay Legislative Council from 1937-1962, refusing the offer of becoming a Muslim Minister in the cabinet in Bombay. Hamied also served as Sheriff of Bombay.

During the last four decades of his life, he played an important role in raising the pharmaceutical and chemical industry in India to an extraordinarily high level through founding the firm Cipla.

An article in The New York Times about Cipla and its founder's eldest son Yusuf Hamied (now Chairman of Cipla) talked in part about Dr. K.A. Hamied's personal history:Dr.K.A.Hamied was born in Kutch [Gujarat] "His father was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi's brand of Indian nationalism whose family chipped in to send him to study chemistry in England, India's colonial master, in 1924. Instead, he changed ships and went to Hyderabad Germany, then the world's leader in chemicals. On a Berlin lake, he met a Lithuanian Jewish socialist -- Mr. Hamied's mother. They fled as Germany was shifting into Nazi hands, and the Chemical, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Laboratories, later known as Cipla, was founded in 1935." -- Selling Cheap 'Generic' Drugs, India's Copycats Irk Industry, Donald G. McNeil, Jr., New York Times, December 1, 2000

(Source: K.A. Hamied: An Autobiography: A life to remember, published by Lalvani Publishing House in 1972)