A few months before she was born in 1981, Dr. Sarika Ramachandran’s father, Prashant Shirsat, was offered a job as a research scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). The family moved from Queens, New York, to Syracuse to start a new chapter of their lives. When Ramachandran’s parents were searching for a name for their baby, they looked to their new city for inspiration. Syracuse became Sarika, and so began a lifelong intersection of her story and BMS’ own—one that would eventually lead Ramachandran to become an associate professor of medicine at Yale and a clinical researcher supported by the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation.
Sarika Ramachandran and her father, Prashant Shirsat
People
Inspiration at the intersection of family and pharma
August 01, 2024
Like father, like daughter
Over the course of 20 years working at BMS, Prashant Shirsat’s career evolved from research science to process engineering, and finally, to a senior role in corporate compliance, marking a trajectory of growth and exploration that took the family from Syracuse, New York, to Evansville, Indiana, and back. “I really grew up with BMS,” said Ramachandran. “When your father is part of pharmaceutical research and so strongly believes in science, science becomes part of you.” When adults would ask what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would think of her dad’s dedication to helping people and imagine a similar calling for herself. “My dad’s totally my hero. He absolutely influenced my interest in science and medicine.”
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An education in medicine
Ramachandran decided to become a doctor and enrolled in a unique undergraduate-medical school combined program through Stony Brook University, supported by a scholarship for the children of BMS employees. She interned with BMS for her first two summers of college. “I worked alongside some very inspirational scientists working on understanding an antitumor compound,” said Ramachandran. “It was one of my first chances to do basic science research and come into contact with a potential medicine before it was being used in a patient population.”
Building a specialty
Ramachandran’s internships at BMS and medical education solidified her interest in a career combining research and treatment, eventually leading her to focus on the impact of autoimmune connective tissue diseases like lupus on hair, skin and nails. As an associate professor at Yale, she operates a multidisciplinary clinic and sees patients together with a rheumatologist. “A lot of patients need more information because these are very complicated diseases, so having two physicians with different specialties can really help to put together the pieces of what's going on,” she said. Despite Ramachandran’s extraordinary efforts, she found there were still barriers to understanding the best course of treatment for patients of color, who are disproportionately impacted by diseases like lupus: “Unfortunately, clinical trials don't always include those who are most affected by the disease." Ramachandran resolved to change that.
Advancing equity through research
In 2022, Ramachandran was awarded funding through the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program (Winn Awards) to study the safety and effectiveness of a potential new lupus treatment in underrepresented populations. The Winn Awards were established in 2020 with a $100 million commitment by the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, an independent charitable organization. Ramachandran’s research is ongoing, but she is optimistic about the impact. “New treatment options offer patients the hope to live their lives to the fullest,” she said.
Reflecting back on her family’s history with BMS and the BMS Foundation, she grew contemplative: “There are a lot of people working on a lot of different things in order to make a big difference in people's lives. At the core of all of science and medicine, is hope. Hope for ourselves, hope for our patients. I always feel hopeful.”
About Bristol Myers Squibb
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