The mounting NPAs of India’s stem cell banks

It wasn’t a subject Deepak Ghaisas understood at all. But he was trying, even before he fully exited i-flex, a financial product company that he had incubated at Citi Group, which was acquired by Oracle in 2005. When Ghaisas did exit, in 2008, he was convinced he wanted to do something “different at age 50”. A year later, that something turned out to be stem cells. As someone who would attend seminars and text his biologist wife to understand the difference between ‘in vitro’ (in a lab) ‘in vivo’ (in an organism), Ghaisas’ foray into stem cells, a class of cells that can repair organs and promise to cure some diseases, was rather unusual.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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