Dr Gautam Allahbadia: The doctor who transformed Assisted Reproduction Techniques in India

Born as Gautam Nandkishore Allahbadia on July 7, 1963 in Mumbai to a family of doctors, the ace medic completed his schooling from St. Josephs High School, Wadala, Mumbai. Post his schooling, he studied medical science at Jaihind College & Basantsing Institute of Science, and Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College & Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital. 

Dr Gautam Allahbadia worked as a lecturer at his alma mater, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College. It was only after a 12-year stint at Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences, affiliated by the University of Mumbai that Allahbadia finally took up private practice.

Success didn’t come easy to Gautam Allahbadia. He started his private practice in the garage of the building where he resided. “I converted it to a clinic and a small lab where we would do semen processing. In 1996, I opened a sperm bank and we found that there were huge demands too. By 2000, we had grown by 30 to 40 times. My father then bought a place and allowed me to use it,” the IVF specialist shares.

Gautam Allahbadia later took a loan from a bank and started an IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) center named ‘Rotunda’. “We had to struggle a lot for the first three years, as there were not many patients. However, I continued writing papers and books in that period. Fortunately, I got some more awards in the west and that made me popular, and we started getting patients. I also had the privilege of being elected as the youngest president of the MOGS,” Dr Gautam Allahbadia recollects.

Dr Gautam Allahbadia has received more than 25 prizes and fellowships till date. Apart from working as an IVF specialist with prominent medical institutions across the globe, he is currently the head of IVF team at Millennium Medical Centre (MMC) IVF Dubai.