individual donor to a US university, his alma mater, by gifting it
nearly $11 million. John P Kapoor, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur,
bequested the money to the State University of New York at Buffalo,
which had offered him a graduate fellowship in the 1960s when the
Bombay University graduate could not afford to pay. The gift will
support construction of a new home for the Buffalo university's
nationally ranked pharmacy school, as well as to fund research,
student financial aid and an emerging-technologies fund. While making
the bequest, 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." The Amritsar-born Kapoor earned his doctorate in
medicinal chemistry in 1972 at the university and went on to become an
entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical industry. But he never forgot his
alma mater. In 2000, he gave it $5 million, and increased it to $10.8
million last month," reports SIFY.
"John B Simpson, President of the university, and Wayne K Anderson,
Dean, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, thanked Kapoor.
"It's a point of substantial pride for us that our pharmacy school
provided the foundation for Dr Kapoor's remarkable career in the
pharmaceutical industry. It is very significant to our university that
he has chosen to honour his alma mater with another truly
extraordinary gift that will help us take the school to even greater
heights of excellence," Simpson said. Kapoor 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.
Kapoor and his late wife, Editha, a Grand Island native, ran the John
and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation to support children and youth
services, higher education, hospitals and other causes in India. Since
1986, the Foundation has funded research, a state-of-the-art
instrumentation core and graduate fellowships at the Buffalo
university.
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," adds SIFY.
Read the full article at --
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14695143
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