KACHARAGADLA

When C.C. Paarthipan, a first-gen pharma entrepreneur, listed his tiny Chennai company, Caplin Point Labs–with revenues of less than $1 million–it was oversubscribed 117 times. He raised about $900,000 in the 1994 IPO and deployed it in a formulations plant in Pondicherry. But in just a few years the company got mired in quality-control issues; consignments were rejected, and it became a penny stock. “I couldn’t pay my sons’ school fees–my company had become a non performing asset,” recalls Paarthipan, 62. “That’s when I took the risk of going to places where most people fear to go.” He packed his bags and left for Africa and then Latin America. He braved the weather, the food, guns, drug lords and competitors to set up a base. He networked with importers and pharmacies to forge deals in these semiregulated markets, which lack the stringency of the U.S. market. The early move to Latin America has differentiated Caplin because small Indian pharmas that choose to export typic