Background
Hamied was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and later graduated from Allahabad University in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh and held Master of Arts
entrepreneur merchant Businessperson
Hamied was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and later graduated from Allahabad University in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh and held Master of Arts
And Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany.
He was an Indian nationalist and anti-imperialist scientist who founded Cipla, India"s oldest pharmaceutical company in 1935. Hamied"s family raised money to send him to study chemistry in England, India"s colonial master, in 1924. Instead, he changed ships and went to Germany, then the world"s leader in chemicals.
They fled as the Nazis rose to power in Germany.
Chemical, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Laboratories (CIPLA) was founded in 1935 with an initial capital of Rs. 2 lakhs. The company commenced production in 1937 making it the oldest pharmaceutical company in India.
Yusuf still refers to his chemistry notebooks from Cambridge. Apart from conceiving the idea of establishing a National Chemical Laboratory and making it a reality, Doctor Khwaja Hamied floated the idea and conceptualized the establishment of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) as an umbrella organization to run a clutch of laboratories.
During the last four decades of his life, he played an important role in raising the pharmaceutical and chemical industry standards in India to an extraordinarily high level through founding the firm Cipla.
Hamied also served as Sheriff of Bombay. Doctor Khwaja Abdul Hamied died in 1972 after a brief illness.
Hamied followed Mahatma Gandhi"s Indian nationalism. On a Berlin lake, he met a Lithuanian Jewish socialist, whom he married.
He remained a Member of the Governing Body of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research right from its inception till the very last
Doctor Hamied was an honorary professor and a member of the executive council of the Aligarh Muslim University, member of the Senate of Bombay University and a fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, United Kingdom.
