Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited has announced the changes that have been made in the top-level management.

Ramesh Adige, vice president, corporate affairs, has been nominated on the Board of Ranbaxy, as a whole-time director.

Legal expert, R Sundar Rajan, has also been inducted into Ranbaxy to head the legal function as vice president. Sundar Rajan was earlier with Wipro Technologies where he was corporate vice president Legal & Group General Counsel.

Amongst those promoted from within the company, Dr R Gowrishankar, has been elevated to the position of vice president, Clinical Research. Dr. Gowrishankar has over 27 years of experience and has contributed significantly to the areas of medical affairs and clinical research both in generics and NCE development.

Jim Meehan has been appointed VP, sales, marketing & distribution. Jim has been instrumental in setting up an extensive distribution system for Ranbaxy's expanding product portfolio in the US.

The others who also have been promoted as vice presidents include-Omesh Sethi, Arun Nayyar, who is managing the company ' s business in Latin America, Ranjit Barshikar, head of global quality, Ramesh Parekh, S C Agrawal, a recognized tax professional.

These new positions have been created to provide leadership and focus in the critical areas of Clinical Research, Global Quality, Sales & Marketing, Legal & Secretarial, Global Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, and other key disciplines, requiring significant attention and top management expertise. These will be pivotal in achieving the Company ' s growth objective of USD 2bn in turnover by the year 2007 and USD 5bn by the year 2012, a company release said here.