Meet Dr. Bhaskar Guntoori
Dr. Bhaskar Guntoori has a philosophy that he stands by—a problem is an opportunity in disguise. This positive way of thinking has allowed Bhaskar to excel from when he was a student to his current role at Pharmaron, Senior Vice President of Process Chemistry. At Pharmaron, he leads a large team of process chemists, and each day he emphasizes the importance of not just solving a problem, but creating an opportunity to learn.
Bhaskar’s desire to be involved in healthcare started as a young boy in his village in India. While health issues ran rampant with no medical doctors or treatments in sight, he dreamed of filling that role so he could contribute to curing the common illnesses that troubled his community.
In high school, he made a strong connection with a teacher who introduced him to the exciting world of chemistry. Here, he recognized that by learning organic chemistry and biochemistry, he could make an impact with the discovery of new medicines, and it soon became his lifelong passion. From the early days of his career to today, he’s been at the forefront of driving research and production of new drugs.
This July, Bhaskar celebrates his tenth anniversary at Pharmaron. During this time, he has played an integral part in growing the process chemistry department, thus supporting a key role in many partners’ drug R&D success. Once a team of 50 in Beijing, his process chemistry team now has over 700 chemists that span across several locations in China, including Beijing, Tianjin and Ningbo.
Under Bhaskar’s leadership, the team has grown from providing only a handful of APIs/Intermediates in 2011 to over 700 in 2020, which supports preclinical to late stage development and commercial API manufacturing.
Over the past decade, Bhaskar has seen the increased complexity of new chemical entities (NCE) in the industry. This has driven his team to learn and implement innovative techniques to reduce the number of steps and increase the scale of synthetic steps safely. New technologies implemented include metal-catalyzed cross couplings, enzymatic transformations, photo-redox chemistry, flow chemistry, green chemistry and asymmetric catalysis and hydrogenation processes, which then develop into robust, scalable processes for larger scale production.
As a result of implementing these techniques, Bhaskar’s team has been able to significantly reduce costs and shorten timelines for our partners, while being environmentally responsible using green chemistry advancements.
The race to cure diseases and help patients globally fuels Bhaskar and his team to continuously find ways to be more efficient and innovative. His team knows that each day presents a new opportunity to learn and make a positive change.
About Dr. Bhaskar Guntoori
Dr. Bhaskar Guntoori joined Pharmaron in 2011 and is Senior Vice President of Process Chemistry. Bhaskar received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1988 from the University of Poona, India. His research work is published in 14 peer-reviewed scientific journals, and he is a co-inventor/co-author of 88 internationally issued patents/patent applications. Prior to Pharmaron, he worked at Apotex Pharmachem, Inc. (Canada) for 16 years, where he held several positions before being promoted to Senior Manager, R&D. In his spare time, Bhaskar enjoys reading books on Eastern/Western philosophy.
His favorite philosopher is Swami Vivekananda, a key figure in the introduction of Hindu philosophies, spirituality and yoga to the western world. One of his favorite quotes that provides inspiration is, “In a day when you don’t come across any problems – you can be sure that you are traveling in a wrong path.”
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