Prof. Arvind Kumar Bansal, Ph.D., is the 21st Vice Chancellor of I.K.Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU), Punjab’s First State Technical University. He was appointed by the Governor of Punjab, Chancellor of this University on August 23, 2026 and he assumed charge on August 25, 2026.

Prior to this distinguished appointment, Prof. Bansal was Professor and Head, Department of Pharmaceutics and also the Dean (2021-2024) at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS Nagar, Punjab, India.

Dr. Bansal led a group of about 14 post-graduate and doctorate students, in various areas of Pharmaceutics like pre-formulation profiling, solid state characterization, improvement of aqueous solubility, enhancement of oral bioavailability and compaction physics.

Dr. Bansal holds a masters (1988) and doctorate degree (1993) in Pharmacy from the University of Delhi. Dr. Bansal served in the pharmaceutical industry as a Research Scientist in major Indian pharmaceutical companies – JK Pharmaceuticals and Ranbaxy Research Laboratories Limited.

At JK Pharmaceuticals Dr. Bansal conceptualized, evolved formulation strategies, developed and transferred the technology to the production shop floor of products belonging to dry powder injection, suspension for reconstitution, immediate release and delayed release tablets, oral liquid suspension and capsules.

At Ranbaxy Research Labs Limited, in addition to these activities Dr. Bansal was actively engaged in business, regulatory and legislative decision-making process for timely launch of generic products in the domestic and international market. He also conceptualized and established a pharmaceutical research group focusing on preformulation and formulation development of New Chemical Entities (NCEs) leading to filing of two INDs. The activities of his group included characterization of physico-chemical (solid state pharmaceutics, aqueous solubility, pH solubility profiling, pH stability profiling, solid state stability, compatibility studies) and physico-technical

(flow properties, hygroscopicity, and compaction studies) properties of the NCE, early formulation development, process development, fabrication of clinical trials batches and support to chemical and biology groups.

At NIPER (2000-2026) Dr. Bansal had developed expertise in characterization and stabilization of the amorphous form, polymorphism, pseudo-polymorphism, particle engineering, molecular understanding of compaction physics, solute behavior during lyophilization, formulation development of cocrystal-based drug product, screening of salt forms, nanocrystalline solid dispersion and improvement of oral bioavailability. His group worked with the mission statement – ‘developing science based industrially viable pharmaceutical technologies’ and worked closely with the pharmaceutical industry to create opportunities for commercial exploitation of the products. His group had successfully executed more than 750 sponsored projects from Indian and overseas pharmaceutical companies, in the area of preformulation and formulation development. Dr. Bansal’s lab had developed platform technologies to improve delivery of ‘difficult-to-deliver’ drug molecules in the areas of amorphous solid dispersions, barrier coated amorphous particles, nano crystalline solid dispersions and SNEDDS. His group had patented novel bottom-up spray drying based technology for generation of nanocrystalline solid dispersions under the nameof NanoCrySPTM.