Sanjay is a Professor of Practice at the Department of Chemistry, BITS-Pilani K.K. Birla Goa campus since 4th March 2024.

Sanjay is a synthetic organic chemist, bioorganic & medicinal chemist, natural product chemist and has ~20 years of Industrial research experience (Piramal Life Sciences Ltd. Mumbai & Zydus Life Sciences Ltd. Ahmedabad) in drug discovery & development involving the creation of research strategy from target selection to delivery of IND candidates.

He holds a proven record of success across several programs. His last 2 decades of collaborative Industrial research has yielded >10 NCEs till INDenabling studies for various therapeutic indications e.g. oncology, inflammatory disorders, metabolic disorders, anti-bacterials,

He has been credited with 1 approved drug for anemia (Desidustat/Oxemia) in India & 3 NCEs till phase I & phase II clinical trials in India & USA.

Apart from NCEs deliverables, Sanjay’s >2 decades of research work as a team yielded >30 publications, >25 patents, 1 book chapter, and guided 1 Ph.D. student (Dr. Vijaykumar Deore) successfully (Ph.D degree awarded 2018) as a recognized teacher of Mumbai University for Ph.D. degree in chemistry department which was very uncommon for industrial setup.

Sanjay obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry, University of Allahabad, India in 2001 under the supervision of Prof. Krishna Misra. 

After his Ph.D., he was awarded with DBT National Postdoctoral fellowship in 2001, to pursue his postdoctoral research work under the supervision of Prof. A. Surolia at Molecular Biophysics Unit, IISC, Bangalore. Subsequently, he undertook a second postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of Prof. G-J. Boons at CCRC, University of Georgia, Athens, USA. During this tenure he worked extensively in the field of Immunology, in particular TLR-2, TLR-4, hPGRPs, lipid rafts isolation and characterization & interaction of biomolecules with synthetic ligands through SPR. During his postdoctoral research tenure at IISC Bangalore & UGA USA, Sanjay has been credited with publications in high impact journals like JBCs and PNAS-USA