An Indian-American, a native of Amritsar, has become the top individual donor to a US university, his alma mater, by gifting it nearly $11 million.
The donation makes John Kapoor, a native of Amritsar, the top individual donor to a US university
NEW YORK: An Indian-American, a native of Amritsar, has become the top 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.
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.
John Simpson, president of the university, and Wayne 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 Corporation.
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.
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