American Association of Indian Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAiPS)

A Brief History
Prior to 1988, Vinod Shah and few other scientists used to informally meet during AAPS (APhA) annual meetings for lunch. They called the group as Alumni Association of Indian Universities (AAIU). In 1988, the lunch meeting had a turn out of over 50 attendees. At the meeting, Vinod suggested that the group needs to form a formal association. Atul Mehta was elected President. Under Atul's leadership the name of the group was changed so that members do not necessarily have to be alumni of Indian Universities. In 1989, in Atlanta (AAPS) a dinner meeting was organized which was attended by about 150 people. AAIPS name was proposed and overall the idea of such an association was well received. Atul Mehta continued to serve as President for a total of three years and mainly with the help of Vinod Shah, the association was kept alive. It can be noted that at this time the association remained primarily a place for Indian scientists to meet.

Reflecting back, after nearly 20 years, AAiPS can be proud that it set a standard for the other ethnic scientific organizations such as Chinese, Iranian, Bangladesh, Irish, Spanish pharmaceutical scientists associations. In 1989, Mukund Yelvigi returned from India. Atul Mehta and Ram Murty appointed Mukund as the Secretary. He felt that the Indian Pharmaceutical Scientific community can play a vital role both in US and Indian pharmaceutical development. With guidance from Atul and Ram, the association was put on active mode of growth. From 1993-2000 AAiPS went through a transformation and growth phase. The current Lamp/Book emblem was selected. A more structured newsletter with a present mailing list of over 700 people was put in place. The association started holding regional scientific meetings by inviting speakers of repute. The first such meeting was held at in 1992 at Namaskar restaurant, Paramus NJ where Dr. Malati Baichwal gave a talk. Life membership category was instituted in 1993 and 12 members were signed in as charter life members. In order to further align AAiPS with the AAPS, we began to hold the annual meetings at the AAPS main hotel ball rooms. At the annual meeting leading US scientists/academicians who had helped in training Indian scientists were invited as speakers; including Joe Robinson, Pat Deluca, Jerome Halperin, George Digenis, Roger Williams, Jerome Skelly, Bill Barr, Joe Schwartz, Les Bennet, Carl Desante, and Anthony Simonelli. Mr. Ajit Singh managing director of Associated Capsules was invited as the first Indian guest, followed by other eminent speakers such as Dr. Parvinder Singh (Ranbaxy), Habil Khorakiwala (Wockhard), Desh Bandu Gupta (Lupin), and Dilip Shanghvi (Sun Pharma).

Narendra Desai, Basant Sharma served as presidents from 1992 to 1993. In 1996 Krip Borah became president and provided lot of direction in revising AAiPS constitution. After Krip Borah Vijai Kumar became president and provided active leadership, which he continues till this date. During Vijai's time, to recognize Indian and non-Indian scientists and leaders, AAiPS Fellow and Outstanding Achievement awards were instituted. During years of further growth, from 1990 to 2000, many other scientists provided their leadership and support; these include Ramesh Raikar, Pramod Chemburkar, Sudhan Marathe, Barry Fox, Avinash Thombre, Hema Jain, Cheenu Murty, and Nemi Jain, Kamal Midha, Vinod Shah, Navnit Shah, and others. In 2001 Sampat Singhvi took over as president. Sampat brought structure to the organization by defining the responsibilities of each office bearer and putting a sound footing for the organization. Sampat continues to support all Association activities as past president. Sampat was followed by Suggy Chrai as president. Suggy brought in his vast industry administration experience and brought in dynamics for further growth with his strong team. Notable achievements from Suggy are a well formatted membership directory and tracking system, structured fund raising activity. Mukund "Mike" Yelvigi became President again 2006. Under his leadership, AAiPS firmly established itself as the premier organization of pharmaceutical scientists and continues to prosper. In 2007 Vijai Kumar was elected as the President of AAiPS for 2008-2009 term. The organization is poised for further growth under his leadership.

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