Upfront

NPIL is now Piramal Healthcare

Our News Bureau - Mumbai

After 20 years of operations, Nicholas Piramal India Limited (NPIL) is acquiring a new corporate identity—Piramal Healthcare. This is part of a re-branding exercise—to craft a value-driven identity that unifies the diverse companies within the Piramal Group. Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Piramal Group, said, "We in the Piramal Group have adopted the ancient, universal symbol of the gyan mudra as our new logo, which epitomises the core values of the Group—knowledge, action and care."

The primary objective of the re-branding exercise is to broad-base the Group's future activities. Dr Swati Piramal, Director-Strategic Alliances and Communica-tions, Piramal Healthcare, stressed that recent initiatives like e-Swasthya, the rural health initiative led by son Anand Piramal, is part of the Group's larger long-term objective of "democratising healthcare". The Group has aligned itself to a worldview and an operational model, which demand that in every interaction, each member of the Piramal community lives the Group values, thus empowering others by the care they provide. The name change is subject to shareho-lders' and Central Government's approval. NPIL Laboratories and Diagnostics and Gujarat Glass will be known as Piramal Diagnostic Services and Piramal Glass, respectively. Indiareit Fund Advisors will retain its name.

NPIL Research and Development Limited was recently renamed Piramal Life Sciences Limited (PLSL), which is the former NCE R&D division of NPIL that was de-merged into an independent discovery research company. PLSL is expected to be listed on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange by June 2008. According to valuations done independently by Lehman Brothers, ENAM Securities and Kotak, the R&D pipeline is today valued at between $480 million to $540 million.