Dr. Vijay Paranjape supports the advancement of different Bt eggplant products in Bangladesh and the Philippines across the plant product life cycle from discovery and development, continuing through commercial use. He also advises on adoption of stewardship practices for life cycle of agricultural biotechnology products.

Vijay is an experienced seed industry professional with over 35 years of techno-commercial-regulatory experience in diverse areas of agricultural biotechnology. He has 25 years of experience working with biotech crops, including 16 years in Monsanto (now Bayer) and 8 years as associate director supporting USAID-funded Bt eggplant projects, overseeing activities being carried out in Bangladesh.  Throughout his career he has provided leadership as well as contributed towards different phases of plant biotech product development pipeline, starting from gene discovery to product development, growth, sustenance, intellectual property protection, stewardship/regulatory compliance governing product approval and product stewardship (ETS) to enable the delivery of high-quality of seeds to farmers.

While at Sathguru Management Consultants, India since 2016, he has been involved in a range of leadership and development roles. These responsibilities include: advising seed industry clients on innovation advancement opportunities, R&D strategy, technology scouting and assessment, technology commercialization, IP strategy and valuation, policy and regulatory framework development, market assessment and strategizing to provide growth strategy, due diligence, valuation of the target seed companies, market assessment (market, product, competition, regulatory), and entry strategy, alternate markets for expansion of seed business in India and other SEA countries. He developed strategies to enforce the organization’s compliance with respect to national regulations associated with doing seed business, such as: intellectual property protection, PPV&FRA, germplasm/seed movement, Seed Act & Rules, rules and guidelines for doing GM research, and Biodiversity Act.

Vijay has a Ph.D. in molecular biology/biology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and post-doctoral research experience in plant molecular biology from Imperial College, London, UK, and Washington State University, Pullman, USA.