CHICAGO: A husband -wife team of Indian American scientists, Dr Asha and Dr Anil Oroskar, are set to take their joint venture Orochem Technologies to a new high now with a recent technical, marketing and financial collaboration with Drug Monitoring and Research Institute (DMRI), an 80 bed state of the art hospital and research unit in Navi Mumbai, India. The deal would enable Orochem to more actively assist the drug and pharmaceutical companies in India and abroad in their clinical research efforts, according to Dr Anil Oroskar, the chief technology officer.

Launched as Orso Chem ten years ago by Dr Asha, an Indian woman scientist turned housewife turned business executive, Orochem was so far concentrating on its activities of supplying tools and technology services but the recent deal with DMRI will place it in a position to place a more active role in the research process.In fact, Orochem had its moorings in India as early as 2001 when the management took a decision to branch out to India with the help of a company director and technocrat, Ved Gulati.

It was also a way to meet increasing demand of Orochem products and services. The Indian firm employing 80 specialists and three times the number as operating staff plus MDs is concerned with the manufacturing activities besides tapping the growing Bio Tech Asian market. The India Orochem had also established a facility in Surat to take care of demand for high value plastic devices from the bio tech industry, but it is now merged with the Mumbai unit.

The company recently bought up an industrial unit in California and a small part of its main operations a re-handled there too.Asha who had come to this country two decades ago with a Bachelor in Chemistry and Masters in cancer research from Mumbai, bagged doctorate in Chemistry from Loyola University in Chicago.

She worked for a couple of years in a supervisory capacity with Argon Laboratories but decided to give up her lucrative career to be a housewife and mother-- the role that she relished and she played well with her two children pursuing higher education in renowned Universities in this country. Her daughter Priyanka has even excelled as Bharat Natyam dancer.

She decided to switch gears in mid nineties launching Oros Chem Technologies from their residence in Oakbrook with a solid backing from her husband Dr Anil who had been working as technical head with oil refining companies in USA. Anil had a degree in chemistry from IIT in Mumbai and pursued successfully Ph. d in chemical engineering at Madison University in Wisconsin. Incidentally, Anil had offered his technical expertise as oil technologist to companies in India, including that of Ambanis in Jamnagar.

He worked for nearly two decades after getting his doctorate and finally bade good bye to his fat salaried and high flying job to be a full fledged business partner with his wife, Dr Asha.The husband wife team with committed staff lifted their Orochem as one of the front ranking firm manufacturing medical devices for the drug discovery, genomics ad proteomics market.

The first product of this company, OF 1100 became the foundation of the high throughput Oligonucleotide synthesis industry.Anil joined the company as the Chief Technology office in June 2005 and is primarily responsible for giving it a technology focus with inventions such as Auto-thermal fuels, Moving Red chematography, etc designed to help the company expand further.

The company currently manufactures over 100 products and serves well over 400 customersSome of its products are protein crash plates kits, silica based sobents and fritted columns, Orochecm Spin columns, proteo Desalt mini spin columns, consumables for PCR, DNA Extraction, vacuum manifold, vacuum controller, positive pressure processor, reactor blocks, QuikVap Sample concentrator, plate washer, plate sealer, robotic liquid, handling system, particle filtration work station, lab oven rotator, RS232 Communication controllers for unattended operations, reactor systems, etc.