Ravi Ganapathy, Ph.D., is the Senior Director of Vaccine Process Development at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) with over 32 years of technical and leadership experience in vaccine R&D and manufacturing. He has deep expertise in upstream and downstream process optimization, formulation, and regulatory pathways, moving products from conception to market. His work spans viral, bacterial, viral-vector, and yeast-based vaccines, and he has built and led teams across R&D, manufacturing science and technology (MSAT), production, and quality assurance functions. 

Dr. Ganapathy rejoined IVI in February 2025, having previously served as Head of Vaccine Process Development (2019–2022). Between IVI appointments, he was Director of CMC (R&D) at Hilleman Laboratories, Singapore. Before IVI, he spent over five years at Biological E. Ltd., where he established laboratories, led the Manufacturing Sciences team, and supported technology transfers. Under his leadership, the company secured an international patent on novel adjuvant preparation and filed a priority patent for alcohol-free polysaccharide purification.

Earlier, Dr. Ganapathy worked at Shantha Biotechnics, where he led scale-up of a tetravalent rotavirus vaccine from phase I to III. He began his vaccine career at Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL), where he spent 14 years spearheading teams on vaccine development and manufacturing for clinical trials and commercial supplies. At BBIL, he also contributed to India’s first cell culture-derived pandemic H1N1 Influenza vaccine.

Dr. Ganapathy holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (PGDBA) specialized in Operations Management. He earned his postgraduate degree in Medical Entomology from Pondicherry University’s Vector Control Research Centre (VCRC), where he graduated as a double-gold medalist. His undergraduate degree was in Medical Laboratory Technology from JIPMER, Pondicherry. Beyond his research, he has been an invited speaker at international conferences and an active faculty contributor in training programs at IVI and universities in Korea and abroad.