India LeadershipTeam

Simpson Emmanuel is the CEO & Managing Director of Roche Pharma India, and he is responsible for driving Roche’s long-term, strategic growth objectives and expansion in the region. He champions Roche’s vision of ‘Delivering better outcomes for more patients, faster’ through innovative access programs and partnerships. He joined Roche in September 2014 as Director of Social Impact and Access Innovations in India and today serves on the board of Roche India, Roche India Healthcare Institute, and is an active member of various industry associations like OPPI (Organization of pharmaceutical producers of India) and SICC (Swiss Indian Chamber of Commerce).

Prior to joining Roche, Simpson served as the Director of Virology, HIV and Oncology business at MSD (India). He is also a two time winner of the Marketing Excellence award instituted by OPPI. Simpson holds an MBA in Marketing & Systems, and a Master’s degree in Health Economics from the University of York, UK.

Arjun Amirapu is the Chief of Staff to the CEO and serves as the primary point of contact for internal and external constituencies on all matters pertaining to the CEO’s office. He is also responsible for the market development and launch strategy of Roche’s Ophthalmology franchise in India.

Prior to Roche, Arjun was a part of the CEO’s office at Medikabazaar driving corporate strategy, growth projects and M&A. He has several years of experience in various strategy and planning roles at Lonza Pharma & Biotech, Biocon and Accenture. Arjun has studied MBA from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, he has a Master’s in Science degree in Biotechnology from the University of Warwick, UK and a B.Tech degree in Biotechnology from VIT University, Vellore.

Bhavesh has joined Roche Pharma India as a Cluster head for Gujarat and he is very passionate about making a meaningful impact for the patients. He has over 18 years of experience in healthcare where he has worked for different therapeutic areas. His last assignment before joining Roche was with Baxter where he was leading the Renal business unit for India and South Asia.

Along with his expertise in managing P&L, Bhavesh brings rich experience of market access strategy, leveraging the matrixed networks within the organization, B2B and distributor driven

market models within the medical devices and pharma industry. In his free time, Bhavesh likes long distance running, traveling, meeting new people, learning about new cultures, reading and playing cricket.

Celio has joined Roche in year 2004 as a Finance Trainee in Roche Brazil affiliate, and since then has held positions of increasing responsibilities across Roche Diagnostics, Diabetes & Pharma, but also at the SSC and at the Group level.

Celio is an inspiring leader with a solid track record in transforming/ simplifying ways of working, developing talents and supporting Roche business worldwide. In his nearly 20 years with Roche, he played a critical role in the establishment of Centers of Excellence (e.g. Roche’s first SSC), built and developed teams from scratch (e.g. SMT Finance) and simplified financial processes and systems that optimized our business performance.

In his last position, he was a key lead in the business and finance transformation and provided strategic support when bringing access to new medicines to the patients in Iran.

 Suman Chakraborty has joined Roche Pharma India as  Cluster Head - West Bengal. He has over 19 years of diverse experience in the pharmaceutical industry which includes sales, marketing, pricing & market access. He has joined us from Novartis  where he was working as Head - Strategic Access & Partnerships, focusing on strengthening the healthcare ecosystem through differentiated innovative access initiatives.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Burdwan University of West Bengal and pursued certification course on general management from NMIMS, Mumbai. He has been a part of the leadership development program at IIM, Ahmedabad.

In his leisure time, Suman  likes reading books, traveling and spending time with family & friends. 

Roche also launched a unique problem solving and learning engagement program tailored towards final year DM/DNB Oncology students. The LEAP program is designed to inspire innovation and unlock solutions across the cancer care continuum from young, bright minds across India and to provide a rewarding learning experience for the future torchbearers of oncology clinical practice and an opportunity to win attractive scholarships. LEAP received an enthusiastic response upon its launch.

Krishna Reddy is the Chief Operating Officer for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Cluster for Roche Pharma India and is responsible for delivering Roche's business objectives and growth in the 2 states.

He has over 19 years of experience across functions and diverse businesses. Prior to Joining Roche, he was managing the commercial P&L of a Danaher Water Quality business for India, Srilanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. He has worked with GE Healthcare, Punj Lloyd and L&T in the past in operations and business roles.

Krishna is a Naval Architect from Cochin University and completed his PGP from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Dr Monika is the Chief Country Access & Policy Officer in Roche Pharma India. She first joined Roche India in 2017 as Lead for Policy and Government Affairs, developing extensive linkages within the higher echelons of power at the Ministries of Health & Family Welfare, Chemicals, Commerce, Finance and Policy think tank of India. She then moved to Roche’s headquarters, joining the company as Health Systems Strategy Leader in the Global Access team, moving then on to become Head of Institutional Relations and now Global Policy Lead.

Prior to joining Roche, while at the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office, she worked as a public health professional, playing an instrumental role in assisting the region’s Member Countries to develop and implement their National Medicines Policy, strategies and plans on essential drugs and other medicines. This experience has deepened her understanding of the importance of health systems development for ensuring Universal Health Coverage. Dr Puri’s understanding of the health care needs of the people came from the honorary work she began doing in 2009; when she started managing the operations of a healthcare-based not-for-profit organization in India.

Dr Puri is a medical doctor and a trained public health specialist from India with extensive experience in developing and implementing healthcare programs.

Nilesh has two decades of experience in handling legal, corporate secretarial, IP, compliance, indirect taxes matters, etc. Prior to joining us, he has worked with practicing company secretary firm and corporate in-house roles with Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline and FMC which were into crop protection, specialty chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors.

Nilesh is a qualified lawyer from Mumbai University and a Company Secretary from Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Priti Sharma is the Cluster Head of Enterprise States and is responsible for proactively shaping the health systems in Enterprise clusters by developing innovative, actionable and sustainable access solutions. Priti is also accountable for the overall P&L of the state and building Roche leadership in chosen business areas apart from leading an externally focused, agile cluster-based team with a mindset and culture to make a disproportionate impact on patient lives.

She joined Roche in May 2014 as a Zonal Manager and in the last 8 years have played various roles within the Roche India affiliate. Prior to joining Roche, Priti served as Regional Manager of Renal and Transplant business at Sanofi India Ltd. She has overall 20+ years of experience including 16+ years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical sector at organizations such as Morepen Labs, Sanat Products, Sanofi and Roche. After completing her graduation in Industrial Chemistry she did her MBA from IMT Ghaziabad and also undertook business transformation strategies program from XLRI Jamshedpur.

Rahul Kamath is the Chief Operating Officer for the Karnataka Cluster, Roche Pharma India, managing the commercial and clinical operations for this region.

Rahul has a Medtech background with clinical expertise in oncology, cardiology, radiology and care areas, having integrated a range of clinical and commercial offerings for the caregiving spectrum. Prior to joining Roche, Rahul worked with Siemens Healthineers and GE Healthcare, shaping large complex deals pursuing diversified business models.

Rahul strongly believes that care in the next normal would be increasingly delivered in distributed sites of care, integrated around the patient through digital and analytics across patient centric ecosystems and driven at scale. He helped incubate a new care area solution that enabled access to health beyond metro cities, impacting the 3As of care delivery - availability, accessibility and affordability. This initiative helped improve access to care in Tier 2 and 3 Indian cities while leveraging the core competences of the CoEs in Tier 1 cities. Rahul has completed his MBA from IIM, Bangalore.

Sheetal Ranganathan is the Chief Strategy Officer of Roche Pharma India. She champions Roche’s strategic priority of utilizing technology and digital solutions to help deliver medical value along the patient journey by enabling confident decisions, backed with data and insights. She is responsible for driving Roche India’s growth objectives with strategic portfolio planning, digital transformation and value partnerships. Sheetal holds a Master’s in Medical Biotechnology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi and an MBA from Xavier

Institute of Management. Prior to joining Roche, Sheetal served as the Global Head of Life Sciences and Healthcare business unit of Evalueserve, a global analytics and advisory services firm. She has 20+ years of leadership and consulting experience in India, Europe, US and China.

Rajan leads the Corporate Affairs, Communication and CSR functions at Roche Pharma India. 

He is responsible for protecting and enhancing Roche’s brand, reputation in the region, drive growth for the business, build preference and engagement for the company across stakeholder groups, and ensure a favorable environment to conduct business through proactive, integrated communication strategies, advocacy efforts, ecosystem shaping programs and issues management. He is also responsible for positioning Roche as an employer of choice by driving employee engagement and culture building efforts.

Prior to joining Roche, Rajan served as the Head of Communications at GE Healthcare, South Asia Region. He has over 20 years of leadership, Communication and External Affairs experience in the Healthcare and Engineering sector at organizations such as GE Healthcare, Abbott, Dr. Reddy’s and ABB. He has been a recipient of multiple awards for communication excellence from bodies like CMO Asia, exchange4media (IPRCCA), Public Relations Council of India and ICAI. Rajan holds an MBA in Marketing & IT from Bangalore University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Media Laws from NALSAR University.

Venkat Vishwanath is accountable as a trusted strategic partner and coach for fostering VACC leadership, advancing organizational design and effectiveness for building a diverse and inclusive work culture, and securing future talent and capabilities at Roche Pharma India.

Venkat is a leader with global experience in developing & implementing an integrated people strategy. He combines functional knowledge with business acumen to create executive sponsorship for progressive people initiatives and programs. He is recognized for leading short and long-term corporate growth strategies and driving enterprise-wide processes for cultural transformation, organizational design, capability building, talent development, and operational excellence, through HR best practices and employee engagement.

Prior to joining Roche, he was with Stelis Biopharma as Chief Human Resources Officer. Previously, he was associated with Teva Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Deloitte and D.E. Shaw, in a series of increasingly responsible roles spearheading major HR initiatives that added significant business value. Venkat holds an MBA in Human Resources Management and Bachelor’s degree in Genetics & Biophysics.

Vinay Subramanian works as Chief Operating Officer- Delhi & Haryana Cluster for Roche Pharma India. He manages the operations for Delhi & Haryana region. He has been a successful sales and marketing management professional with over 20 years of experience in diverse healthcare market segments spanning pharmaceuticals, drug delivery, life care solutions, imaging technology and varied care areas like Oncology and Cardiology. Vinay Subramanian in his earlier role with GE was working towards Identifying and engaging business partners to create new oncology centers and facilitate creation of CCCs (Cancer Care Centers) and day care centers in India and South Asia Region. He received his bachelor’s degree in Science from University of Mysore and graduated from UC Berkeley, from Berkeley Executive Program in Management.

He has also worked with Fortune 500 companies like Becton Dickinson and Pfizer in his earlier roles. Vinay has been recognized for his achievements with many National and International rewards and recognition by companies he was associated with in the past.

Vinodkrishna Poyyale works as Chief Operating Officer (Kerala) for Roche Pharma India. He joined Roche as Associate Director - Access Strategy in 2016 and held positions with goals of increasing responsibility such as business unit director and commercial director before moving into current role. Having started a career with IT solution sales, Vinodkrishna has extensively worked in Sales, Marketing and Market Access strategy in Medical Devices & Pharmaceutical industries over a span of 22 years.

During his healthcare tenure, he has worked in various medical specialties such as Oncology, Nephrology, Rheumatology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Diabetology, Neuroradiology, Interventional Radiology, Cardiology and Infectious diseases. He has also been part of a start-up that aimed at providing integrated disease management solutions.

He has done his graduation in business administration and he is also a gold medalist in post graduate course in sales & marketing from XLRI Jamshedpur. In his spare time he likes writing blogs on leadership, people development and other business related topics.

Viraj Khamkar is the Cluster Head of the newly minted cluster of Uttar Pradesh. He joined Roche in 2018, and was a part of the core team that developed & rolled out Roche's strategy & operating model in 2020-21. Since then, he has led key functions such as strategic planning & management, insights & digital transformation progressively, within the broader Corporate Strategy umbrella. Viraj also concurrently served as the insights chapter lead prior to his current assignment, where he helped build the chapter & lay the foundation for Roche India's data & insights backbone.

Prior to this, Viraj led strategy consulting engagements at IQVIA (then IMS Consulting Group) for various pharma, lifesciences & private equity players, with exposure across SE Asia & Europe. His prior consulting assignments as a part of the Tata Group include work across sectors - defence, energy, hospitality, nutrition & cancer care provision.

Viraj is an electrical engineer by qualification, with an MBA in Operations from SPJIMR, Mumbai.

Dr. Viraj Suvarna is the Chief Medical Officer and Medical Chapter Lead of Roche Pharma India, and has over 24 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Roche, Viraj has worked with Pfizer for 11 years as Head Medical Operations, and Boehringer Ingelheim for 8 years as a Medical Director. He has held leadership positions in the past at various companies like Eris Lifesciences Limited, Global Generics India at DRL, Lupin India and Biocon Biologics.

In his current role, Viraj leads the regulatory affairs, quality, safety, medical information, clinical operations and medical chapter, contributing to creating and implementing Roche India’s vision to have an impact on patients in need. He is a trained Medical Doctor from Mumbai University, with an MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) from Topiwala National Medical College and BYL Nair Hospital, an MD in Pharmacology from Grant Medical College and the Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, and an MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine from Hibernia University, Dublin.