Immigrant Entrepreneur Laxman Desai of Toxicon Corp.

In 1977, Dr. Laxman Desai launched Toxikon Corporation, a pre-clinical contract research firm that provides testing for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. In the nearly 40 years since, he’s built a 25-acre research and training facility in Bedford, expanded his business into four countries and trained more than 15,000 scientists. Headquartered in Massachusetts, Toxikon has offices in Minnesota, Belgium, India and Japan, it has more than 1,000 active customers worldwide, and 60 percent of its employees are women.