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Kolkata: Bengal researcher Eshika Dutta Chakraborty has received the Rajnibhai V Patel PharmInnova Award 2025-26 in pharmaceutical sciences recently at an awards ceremony in Ahmedabad, where Union home minister Amit Shah stressed the need to strengthen research and innovation to push India higher up the global pharmaceutical and medtech value chain. Chakraborty received the award from Shah at the PharmInnova Awards Ceremony 2026, organised by Troikaa Pharmaceuticals recently. Her research includes work jointly patented with Dr Andrew V Schally, the 1977 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, according to information accompanying the award announcement.
Shah later posted that India was strengthening its pharmaceutical sector through a “world-class research and innovation ecosystem” and investment-conducive policies. At the Ahmedabad ceremony, Shah said pharmaceutical companies needed to put greater emphasis on research and encourage students, researchers and professionals working on innovation. “Unless we promote research, we cannot move forward,” he said, according to an official account of his speech. The aim, he said, was not merely to make India self-reliant in medicines but also to expand its role as a global pharmaceutical manufacturing and innovation hub. Shah said India was already manufacturing ventilators and that efforts were underway to build domestic capacity across a far wider range of medical equipment by 2028 — “from bandages to MRI machines”.
The event honoured research scholars as well as their research guides. The research has also been published in Translational Medicine . The Bengal connection drew particular attention after noted classical musician Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Chakraborty’s father-in-law, described the honour as a matter of pride, particularly for women from Bengal. He also referred to the Centre’s Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma-MedTech sector (PRIP) initiative and policies designed to encourage domestic manufacture of critical APIs, key starting materials, and medical devices.