For a thriving career, dedication to work ethics is the very fountainhead of achievements. And who has imbibed these valuable traits better than Dr. Shama Bhat, Chairman & Managing Director, Bhat Bio-Tech India [P] Ltd, who built his business on these virtues. A technocrat, Bhat has made his bio-tech firm a leading manufacturer of diagnostic kit. A recombinant DNA technology major in Karnataka, he has a significant presence in the domestic and international markets. A visionary, pragmatic and a true believer in hard work, Bhat has had a brilliant academic career, a doctorate in biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr. Bhat served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine. Like many of his colleagues, Dr. Bhat too could have stayed back in the US and pocketed huge money. But money has never been his ultimate goal. It was his dedication to the country and patriotism that brought him back to the place of his origin. Having rare entrepreneurial instincts and backed by his experience and exposure in research of diagnostics kits abroad, Bhat returned to India to start his own bio-tech firm as he had always cherished a dream - to do something of his own. Despite the fact that diagnostic kits and reagents manufacturing in India is a relatively new segment in the healthcare industry, Bhat has been able to make his mark. As very few large units have manufacturing facilities in the country and imports kits and reagents, his contribution to raise the nascent diagnostic kit-manufacturing sector in India to a higher pedestal has been widely appreciated by industrialists and people alike. It was probably because Bhat could feel the pulse of the rapidly changing world. For he knows that the technology is changing fast and unless we change and adapt, it will be difficult to survive. With a vision to utilize his training and expertise to serve the people, it was in the year 1993 that Bhat, while participating in an International conference on AIDS, realised that all diagnostic kits for HIV (AIDS) were imported and that it cost a lot. As he was working on HIV/AIDS since 1983, he thought this would be a good area to come back to India with, and start something, which is useful and meaningful. And that's precisely what he did - he followed the calling of his heart. A firm believer in the power of technology, Bhat is known to bring in new products fast and adopt the existing ones to suit the Indian conditions. Since 1996 he has brought nearly 40 different types of diagnostic kits with a small group of R&D staff and a very meagre budget. That itself is a big achievement. A good R&D team plus his ability to interact with the scientists from the United States have put the company on a firm foundation. But Bhat has a long way to go, especially in view of his potential - for he is meant to touch the sky.