Anil Koul

Biography

  Dr. Anil Koul, prior to taking the charge of Director, CSIR-IMTech, was Senior Director & Head, Respiratory Infections Discovery group at healthcare multinational Johnson & Johnson. He has more than 16 years of experience in pharmaceutical drug discovery research and clinical development. He obtained his Ph.D. from Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany and Delhi University, Delhi. As a part of continued education, in 2011, he attended a short residential program at Harvard Business School, USA on innovation, strategy and leadership. Dr. Anil Koul has been a key scientist in discovery and clinical development of SIRTURO (generically called Bedaquiline) - the first drug to be granted approved by United State's FDA and EU in last 45 years. Bedaquiline has been approved till date more than 25 countries across the world. In 2015, India;s ministry of health conditionally approved bedaquiline. In 2013, he was awarded "Johnson Medal", the highest R&D prize by Johnson and Johnson for contributions to discovery and development of Bedaquiline. He was invited to European Parliament to present to members of Europe-India Chamber of Commerce on Bedaquiline and issues of global public health. Earlier, he was also awarded 'The Philip B. Hofmann Prize ' for his discovery of Bedaquiline's mode of action. He has also been conferred with "Swiss-TB prize" by Switzerland's Society of Pneumology for outstanding scientific research (2005). Dr. Koul is a well-known and respected expert in Infectious diseases with >35 peer reviewed publications in leading journals like Nature and Science; > 40 presentations at International congress and more than 30 patents to this credit. He and his research team have also discovered several new drugs (currently in clinical development) for diseases ranging from viral bronchiolitis, novel antibiotics and animal health. Prior to J&J, he worked in Germany in a biotech company on the development of kinase inhibitors for oncology. Dr. Koul is a visiting professor at Faculty of Sciences at Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has featured in Voice Of America's radio news analysis and India's electronic news channels (NDTV) 'Every Life Counts Program around Bedaquiline drug-discovery. He is a member of India's Technical Advisory committee on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), constituted by Ministry of Health and Family welfare, Govt. of India. He is also a member of Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) Northern Region Committee on higher education.

Research Interest