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John P. Kapoor,Ph.D., a pharmaceutical entrepreneur

 

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  • NRI Dr. J Kapoor donated more than $10.8 million to University at Buffalo

Buffalo, New York, June 11, 2008
Surinder Mehta

NRI John P. Kapoor, Ph.D. '72, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur has made a $5 million investment in the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences through the John and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation. With this gift and prior gifts that together total more than $10.8 million, Kapoor becomes the most generous individual donor ever to UB. In light of this generosity, the university will name the pharmacy building John Kapoor Hall in his honor.

The gift, issued as a challenge to encourage others to follow his exemplary lead, will support construction of a new home for the nationally ranked pharmacy school, as well as faculty research, student financial aid and an emerging technologies fund.

Mr. Kapoor from Amritsar, an alumnus of the University at Buffalo considered a visionary leader in the pharmaceutical industry received a fellowship that helped him to earn a doctoral degree and begin his highly successful career in 1960.

Kapoor said, "I owe so much to this university. Fortunately, I am in a position to help, and the university is on the top of my list."

He began his corporate career on Grand Island, New York as general manager for Lyphomed, a unit of Stone Container Corp. He was named president of the division in 1980, and in 1981 he bought it for $2.7 million. He took the company's sales from $4 million to $172 million, before eventually selling it. With the profits, he formed EJ Financial Enterprises Inc, which invests in healthcare startups.

Since 1986, the Kapoor Charitable Foundation has funded research, a state-of-the-art instrumentation core and graduate fellowships at UB. More recent contributions provided support for five Kapoor Fellows in the pharmacy school, three of whom have graduated and begun their careers and two who are current pharmacy school students. The foundation's support also was critical to the school's successful completion of a Kresge Foundation Challenge Grant for $500,000 to pay for additional equipment.

"It is my privilege to help UB continue at the leading edge of innovation in pharmaceutical sciences education," Kapoor said. "The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has played a significant role in shaping my career and it is my honor to be part of its future."

The UB pharmacy school is preparing for its eventual move to the South Campus, where it will join the university's four other health science schools -- dental medicine, medicine, nursing and public health -- that comprise the UB Academic Health Center. The pharmacy school's new home will be funded by a true private-public partnership, with the State of New York providing $46 million for construction and the remainder coming from the university and private investments. It will be the first UB professional school to relocate back to the City of Buffalo since the construction of the North Campus in Amherst in the 1970s.

"His gifts have transformed the school," Anderson said. "His generosity has allowed us to leverage core support for research programs and has enabled us to provide seed grants for young faculty, who, in turn, have achieved a very significant level of success in research activities. His new gift will help vault the school into the future with an improved, high-tech facility where we continue the important work of educating generations of pharmacy professionals."

Slated for completion in 2011, the pharmacy school building will be a vital resource for advancing patient care, attracting students and faculty, and providing a contemporary learning environment. It will include a state-of-the-art Pharmaceutical Care Teaching and Learning Center, which will support a comprehensive interprofessional curriculum focused on continuity of care, medication therapy management, collaborative drug-therapy management and patient education. Other features will include laboratories dedicated to pharmacy informatics and information systems, audio and video conferencing for real-time interaction with remote locations, live Web casts and recording capabilities, and interactive audience response systems.

"Without this support it would have been impossible for me to come to the United States to pursue higher education. I received tremendous support and encouragement from the faculty at the school as I tried to adjust to a different system of education. I also learned a great deal about this country at the university," Kapoor said in an interview in 2002.

Throughout his career, Kapoor has demonstrated keen marketing insight. As president and CEO of LyphoMed, he rejuvenated the hospital products company into a more than $100-million-a-year business, which he then sold to Fujisawa Pharmaceuticals. He went on to serve in leadership positions at several U.S. pharmaceutical companies over the next 30 years, including Option Care, Inc., a provider of home health-care services; Akorn, Inc., a manufacturer and marketer of generic ophthalmic products; and Introgen Therapeutics, Inc., a gene therapy company.

Kapoor, with his late wife, Editha, a native of Grand Island, N.Y., established the John and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation to support children and youth services, Christian organizations, health organizations, higher education, hospitals and charitable causes in India. The many honors he has received include the UB Distinguished Alumni Award, a State University of New York honorary degree, the San Diego Indian American Society Chakra Award and the American Cancer Society International Achievement Award for Philanthropy.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.

 

 

The new South Campus home of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is to be named after alumnus John N. Kapoor

  • Born in Amristar, India, Kapoor earned an undergraduate degree in pharmacy from Bombay University, and sought to attend graduate school in the United States. UB offered him a graduate fellowship, allowing him to pursue a doctorate in medicinal chemistry.
  • Kapoor remembered that without the university's support "it would have been impossible for me to come to the US to pursue higher education. I received tremendous support and encouragement from the faculty at the school as I tried to adjust to a different system of education. I also learned a great deal about this country at the university."