Abbas Deesawala
Abbas Deesawala
Graduated in 2012
MSc Biotechnology, Bioprocessing & Business Management
Nationality: Indian
First Degree: BTech Biotechnology
First job after graduating: Management trainee in Corporate Strategy and Development, Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Chennai.
Current job (April 2019): Senior Manager, Strategy & Portfolio at Cipla Ltd, Cape Town, South Africa
The best thing about Warwick is its infrastructure, student life/activities and high growth-rate. It has been rapidly rising in the world ranking. Clearly the management knows what it is doing. The best thing about this MSc was definitely the fact that it opened my eyes to the business management part of biotech. It taught me that just discovering a compound is not enough. It is in fact more important to know when and how to develop it, where to introduce it and how to commercialize it because eventually that’s what brings the money in!
After this course I came to realize what I was truly interested in doing for a career, and the multi-disciplinary nature of this course helped me get my job (as a member of the corporate strategy and development team in a top 15 Indian pharma. They said that if not for this course, my background would have been too technical to even be considered for the position I had there.
Today, 7 years after graduating, I work with one of the top 5 Indian Pharmaceutical firms, Cipla, and they have re-located me to Cape Town, South Africa where I serve as Senior Manager, Portfolio and Strategy. All this is possible thanks to the strong foundation and international exposure that was provided to me at Warwick, during my making days!
For all those of you thinking about joining, don’t worry, you will be choosing a great place to learn and grow. Good luck!