Ramaiah Muthyala | Professor/Director at University of Minnesota, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Indian organization for Rare diseases

Ramaiah Muthyala Received his Ph.D. from the University of Sagar, India; Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; and MBA from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Currently, Ramaiah is an associate professor in the Department of Experimental Clinical Pharmacology at the College of Pharmacy, a graduate faculty member in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, and an adjunct professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota. Before his academic career, he was with the pharma industry for 22 years in the U.S. and India.  He served as a member of the executive board of two Indian pharma companies.  He held many positions, from bench chemist to director.  He is the author of more than 35 peer-reviewed scientific publications, two books, four book chapters, and 12 patents, and he has contributed to commercializing four products for Dow Chemicals, 3M, and Schering Plough. Ramaiah founded the Indian Organization for Rare Diseases, IORD, and serves as its first President.  It is an umbrella organization representing all rare diseases and patients in India.  Its mission is to raise awareness of rare diseases, advocate public policy, and promote orphan drug development.  Ramaiah is responsible for bringing rare diseases to the attention of the president, vice president, prime minister of India, health ministers, health secretaries, and other policymakers in India.  His efforts made the phrases “rare diseases and orphan drugs” not foreign to most Indian people.  Ramaiah is one of the initial Rare Diseases International (RDI) members and served as Treasurer (2016) for the RDI council.  Ramaiah is a member of the National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD), the European Organization for Rare Diseases (EURORDIS), the Canadian Organization for Rare Diseases (CORD), the International Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs (ICORD), Asia Pacific Alliance for Rare Diseases Organizations (APARDO).