Several of my past blogs have been devoted to pay tribute to the people who have devoted their entire life providing humanitarian services. There may be thousands and thousands of such people, but my concentration will be only for the people I have known, or heard about, providing such services for a number of years. I intend to cover activities which could help hundreds or thousands of people who may not have known about these individuals or services provided by them.
In the 1st Humanitarian Services blog, I covered services provided by Mr. Ramesh Shah and his wife Dr. Jayaben Shah. The 2nd blog was devoted to the services provided by Dr. N.K. Shah of London, UK. The 3rd blog was devoted to the services provided, not by only one individual but, by a group of dedicated doctors who have been providing much needed care for hundreds of people every year. The 4th blog was devoted to the services provided by Dr. Ashwin Pandya and his late wife Dr. Anjuben Pandya. This blog covers life stories of Mr. U. N. Mehta, founder of Torrent Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. U. N. Mehta’s (Hereafter referred to as Mehta) life story is so intriguing that I decided to divide this blog in two parts. In this first blog I will give some highlights of his life and the second blog will cover humanitarian services provided by him and continued by his family members after his death.
Mehta was a very enterprising individual. His life journey passed through a series of ups and downs. As you read through the following, I am sure you would not believe that one person can pass through such ups and downs and still create unimaginable history in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, diversify in to various fields, and gain a strong foothold in many parts of the world. I would strongly recommend you to analyze how such success could be achieved by a person who fought through life and death scenarios all through his life.
Mehta was born (Birth date- Jan. 14, 1924) and raised in a small village called Mahemadpur (approximately 10 miles from Palanpur, Gujarat, India). His mother passed away when he was only one and a half years old. Mehta was a brilliant student right from childhood. However, coming from a poor family, he had to pass through many hardships to go through primary, secondary and higher education. Despite many road blocks he graduated with a B.Sc. degree from Wilson College in Bombay. He scored very high in chemistry. He used this strength in chemistry to shape his future life.
Kumarpal Desai has written a wonderful book on Mehta’s life. A 235 page hard covered book covers vivid details of Mehta’s life. He went through ups and downs all along, but at the end he was able to attain his goal. This blog will cover only a fraction of the highlights of his life.
After completing his education, Mehta initially took up temporary jobs at a very low salary. He could not make a living on this salary, so he cut corners where ever he could. He ate in lodges where they served very inferior quality food. This affected his digestive system. At the age of 20 he suffered from diarrhea after which digestion related problems lingered with him the rest of his life.
He kept searching for a good job. He approached several local and European companies for an interview, but wasn’t successful. One day he went to a world famous pharmaceutical company, Sandoz. After waiting for a long time he was able to meet their managing director Mr. Sindhal. During the interview Mehta was drilled with several pertinent questions. He was also asked if he was familiar with the city of Ahmadabad. Even though he had not seen that city and was not familiar with what went on in that city, he showed confidence in handling work. Mr. Sindhal was impressed with the answers Mehta provided and asked him to start work at Sandoz. At this point Mehta did not know whether it was a reality or a dream. Sindhal offered him a job with a salary of 235 rupees (approximately $ 50 at present exchange rate) per month including expenses. Today we may feel it was a very poor salary, but at the time it was impossible to get such a job without influence.
Sandoz had just introduced an injection in place of a tablet which was being used to treat tuberculosis. Mehta’s job was to meet doctors in different parts of Gujarat State to introduce this injection. For this work, he had to travel days and nights in various parts of the state. He travelled for days by train, bus, camel, bicycle and even by foot, from one corner of the state to the other. During these travels, many a times he would not get proper food or sleep; however he did not give up and kept on working. There were occasions when he was on the road for over two months. Even though his health suffered, he was very successful in promoting Sandoz’s injection in the market.
One time while travelling through the city of Bhavnagar he came down with a severe cold. He went to see a doctor who gave him several tablets and told him these tablets will take care of the cold immediately. To his surprise he got rid of his cold quickly. When he returned to that city again he went to see the doctor and told him that the medication he gave was very effective in getting rid of his cold quickly. He asked him the name of the tablets he had given him. Doctor reluctantly told him that he had given him Amphetamine tablets. This tablet was like a magic pill. As soon as he took this tablet he felt fresh and energetic. He got hooked on this tablet and started taking a quarter or half a pill every day to enable him to work long hours. As soon as the effect of the pill wore off he became very quiet. Prolonged use of this pill had a bad effect on his health. He just continued to convince himself that there was no harm in taking a small dose of this medication. This tablet, in the long run, created a lot of problems for him and his family. His family tried hard to keep him away from these pills, but could not succeed.
He worked for Sandoz for 15 years and made tremendous progress for the company. His continued use of amphetamine tablets finally affected his work and the company appointed a supervisor to look after his work. He asked himself how could a company, for which he had worked day and night and sacrificed his health and family life for, think of doing this. Mehta did not appreciate this and wanted to quit. One of his doctor friends advised him not to resign and ask for a leave of absence instead. He presented his case to the company to take a leave of absence, but the company turned around and asked him to report to a different city. Mehta did not like the approach the company took and he quit the service. At that point he decided that he was not going to work for anyone else and decided to work for himself.
He started researching several fields to decide which field to enter into. After talking to several pharmacists, doctors and conducting his own research he decided to make two separate medicines: Tinipayrin for arthritis and Tinispazmin for stomach ache. Not having enough money to manufacture these drugs, he struggled to bring these drugs to the market. A lot of people praised these medicines; but the shortage of money and having poor health, made it very difficult to promote these medicines. Everyone who knew him had lost confidence in him by this time. Poor health and the addiction to amphetamines did not help either. This episode lasted for about seven years. People who followed him decided that even though he was educated, he did not have any business sense.
But nothing deterred Mehta from pursuing his dream. He kept on working day and night thinking of the right medicine to bring to the market. He had spent all the money he could get his hands on. Finally to cut down costs, a good friend recommended moving his family to a small, nearby, family home town Chhapi (approximately 50 miles from Ahmadabad). Even though Mehta was against it, his family convinced him to shift to Chhapi. During all these difficulties, his wife Sardaben stood by him and made sure her two daughters and two sons got a good education.
Mehta did not lose confidence in him and kept on promoting the medicines he had put out in the market. After repeated contacts and persistence, several doctors started giving him small orders. Many of these doctors were really impressed with Mehta’s approach, persistence and manner in which he handled his job.
Mehta started visiting doctors all over the Gujarat State carrying a heavy load of medical samples. At times, he even traveled over 100 kilometers a day by train, bus and camel. One by one he started giving up to one thousand pills, as a sample, to the doctors he visited. He even paid attention to what every doctor liked and took with him small token gift items of interest to them. In return for his hard work, he started getting small orders which gave him encouragement to continue working.
One time he asked a close friend Dr. K. H. Mehta if he could get introduced to a District Health Officer. Dr. K. H. Mehta took him to see the health officer who was impressed by Mehta and in turn introduced him to Banaskantha Medical Officers Association. This opened up a new source of contacts. In the meantime he got permission to manufacture drugs on loan license in Bombay. Because of his poor health, travelling to Bombay was getting difficult for him. Slowly his business started improving but his health deteriorated even further. One of his friends Jesingbhai joined him in a partnership in order to help out. After travelling to Bombay several times and not seeing enough prospects, Jesingbhai decided to leave the partnership too. Even after leaving, Jesingbhai did not give up helping Mehta.
In his brother-in-law’s office Mehta established an office by the name Trinity. Mehta started visiting doctors in distant villages, wearing pants, a shirt and tie. Doctors were really impressed by seeing a well dressed company representative visiting them. Doctors started liking Trinity medicines. Slowly he started manufacturing vitamins and other type of pills by the name Trinipayrin, Irgapayrin and Trinihamin. His medicines were priced at fifty percent less than the price of comparable foreign medicines. His medicines started getting recognition in the market. Several doctors from Ahmadabad started giving him big orders.
Through research, he found out that there was a tremendous markup in prescription drugs and those drugs had captured a big market share. He devoted all of his energy in researching this field. To attract a large pool of poor people in India, he started offering prescription drugs in the market at a very low price.
Now that the business was improving and he had also overcome his amphetamine addiction, he started concentrating on the business. His wife and he together decided to move back to Ahmadabad to promote his business. He rented a small 14 feet by 10 feet room. His wife helped him package his medicines which doctors from Visnagar, Patan and Ahmadabad started prescribing. The business started to expand and he rented a small place for his factory. The very same day he contracted for the factory space, a businessman from Madras filed a claim against him for violation of their trade name. This created another problem. Now in order to defend his case he had to hire a lawyer. Even with his ill health, every two weeks he traveled to Madras along with his lawyer. After a long battle in 1975, both companies got exhausted and together decided to settle the case when Mehta agreed to change Trinity name to Torrent. Now Mehta had to start advertising the Torrent name in place of well recognized Trinity name.
Mehta kept on reading about various medications and became successful in bringing out newer medications which no one else had. His company’s name started getting recognition in the Indian market.
Two of his tablets Trinibiyam and Trinispazmin also started selling in the market. One doctor from Ahmadabad was so happy with these medicines that he ordered 200,000 tablets. In 1970, in competition with a French firm, Mehta also put out a new pill named Trinicam tablet for psychotic disorders, which included paranoid schizophrenia. This tablet was priced at one third the cost of a similar drug from a French firm. This move gave his firm a name for psychic drugs in the market. Previously he had to visit all the doctors to promote his business. Now with the specialization in psychic drugs, he had to visit only specialists for mental disorders. Trinicam was very effective, but had a side effect which made the body to shake. To stop this side effect doctors were prescribing another pill named Pesitan along with Trinicam. Patients had to take two tablets which increased the cost.
By extensive research Mehta figured out the composition for Pesitan and made a pill that included both the medicines and named it Trinicam Plus. Trinicam plus came in the market in the year 1972. Within a year its sale increased fourfold. In 1973-1974 sales increased to 780,000 rupees. In 1974-75 sales reached to 1,100,000 rupees. Just about this time his older son Sudhir joined the company after finishing his education. It is hard to even imagine the success Mehta achieved in the following years. This Trinicam plus tablet changed his fortune. This was the beginning of good days for Torrent. Trinicam plus became well known all over India. He did not stop there. One after the other he put out medications to treat various diseases. His marketing skill was superb. He started visiting most famous doctors in various states. One by one he convinced these doctors to write prescriptions for his medications. His medicines gained ground in various states.
His life took another turn at the time he started becoming very successful. In 1977 his health started deteriorating further. He met several well known doctors. Some said he had tuberculosis and some said he had hodgkin's disease. Tata Hospital in Bombay called it a type of cancer which is first of a kind disease in India. Mehta wrote over 250 letters to well known doctors and hospitals all over the world. Along with the letter he sent slides prepared by his doctors as reference. Some doctors even told him that he had six months to live. But Mehta did not give up hope. Upon receipt of Mehta’s letter New England Journal of Medicine replied back indicating that there are two well renowned specialists for his disease in Los Angeles and their names are Robert Luks and Henry Rapa Port. Soon after he found out that Henry Rapa Port was coming to Tata Hospital in Bombay for only six hours. Mehta thought this was a miracle. He contacted all his acquaintances at Tata Hospital and made sure he was able to meet this well known doctor. Incidentally, just before going to Bombay he got a telegram from Rapa Port asking him to see him in Bombay. All the doctors at Tata Hospital were surprised to find out that such a well known doctor had sent a telegram to Mehta. Rapa Port, after thorough examination, also agreed that he had a unique type of cancer and recommended him to visit America. Soon after he came down with Jaundice and did not have any hope to recover. But to everyone’s, surprise he recovered within a month and after some time went to America to visit these famous doctors. It is hard to believe but these famous doctors spent days to examine Mehta’s condition.
From 1977 to 1992 his cancer condition was in remission. In 1992, when he went to Bombay to attend a wedding at a relative’s house, he got some tests done and found out that multiple cancerous lymph nodes had shown up again. In his life time, he had gone through all kind of illnesses, but nothing kept him down from achieving his goal. Even though day by day his health was deteriorating he did not leave anything unfinished. One by one he had appointed his sons and other capable people to handle each and every activity of the company. By this time Torrent had branched into many other fields and had established business ventures along with the state government. This unusual person passed away on 31st of March, 1998. During his life time he was involved in lot of charitable activities. Because there are so many charitable activities to cover this entire topic will be covered in a separate blog.
Today over and above extensive investments in India Torrent Pharma has wholly owned subsidiaries in Brazil, Germany, Philippines, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Australia and USA. It has a modern and well-equipped state-of-the –art R&D Centre, built with an initial investment of US $40 million and manned by more than 630 highly qualified scientists. In the International operations arena, Torrent Pharmaceutical exports to more than 50 countries around the world with over 1000 products. Torrent Power, the power brand of the Torrent Group, is one of the leading power utilities in India with an integrated presence in the entire value chain of the power business viz. generation, transmission and distribution. It has a generation capacity of 1647 MW and distributes power to over 2 million customers in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat and Bhiwandi in Western India. In the year 2008-09, the Group recorded a turnover of USD 1.41 billion of which Torrent Pharma constituted $363 million and Torrent Power constituted USD 1.02 billion.
Mehta and his family have spent millions of dollars for charitable activities. Details of this charitable work will be covered in the future blog.
My future blogs will cover the humanitarian services provided by the following individuals. They are not listed in any particular order.
1. Dr. Rajanibhai Shah, who built a one of a kind Jain-Temple and a community facility in Queens, NY
2. Details of Mr. U.N. Mehta and his family’s charitable activities.
3. Health Fair conducted in Cleveland, Ohio on Sept. 13, 2009. Dr. Harish Gatha was the chairperson of this event.
If you know about other such individuals please let me know. My telephone number is 516-705-8758. You can view my blogs by clicking either http://www.nickshelpinghand.com/ or http://nickshahblog.blogspot.com/. My email address is: nshah@optonline.net.
For further details about Torrent pharmaceuticals visit- http://www.torrentpharma.com/
