New Delhi, Oct. 25 -- Through the 1970s and 1980s, a galaxy of technopreneurs that included Yusuf Hamied of Cipla, Parvinder Singh of Ranbaxy, Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma, Ramanbhai Patel of Zydus-Cadila, and Habil Khorakiwala at Wockhardt, laid the foundations of India's world-beating generics industry.

Even in that stellar list of names, Kallam Anji Reddy stood apart for his audacious vision of turning India into a hub for discovering new drugs, and not just reverse engineering them. In his autobiography An Unfinished Agenda, he wrote that "nothing is more joyous (an) experience than the discovery of a new drug".

It was once an improbable dream for a country that depended entirely on medicines made by multinationals. Today, India's $...