India, Jan. 10 -- Retirement is generally a time when people hang up their boots and sit back to enjoy their sunset years. But for Purna Chandra Ray, retirement set them off on another journey with a mammoth task-to reduce India's chemical imports from China. This is when GPC Lifesciences was founded in 2020.

This was not sheer audacity; it was his decades of experience working with pharmaceutical companies in various roles that made him acutely aware of the weak position in which China had placed India's pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Says Ray, "China dominates our chemical and pharma industry mainly because they are leaders in the manufacture of intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Even to manufacture pa...