Dr. Neha Raje

Dr. Neha Raje is a direct descendant of India’s spirited and brave warrior Queen Laxmibai, ruler of Jhansi. She was born in Ahmednagar, India, and raised in the elegant and bustling city of Mumbai. The daughter of a successful pharmaceutical executive and a highly spiritual physicist mother, Neha has been on a quest for enlightenment since childhood: her dream as a young girl was to become a scientist and make medicines that would heal the world. Early on, Neha’s natural talent for gymnastics led her to a highly disciplined, intense practice that emphasized the importance of mind over matter, with her mother serving as her main cheerleader and also her teacher, as Neha’s devotion to the sport made homeschooling necessary. While fragile in appearance, her strength made her a formidable young gymnast who knew she could do anything she put her mind to. After winning two Indian national championships, Neha eschewed the path of becoming a professional athlete and, in her late teens, returned to her original dream of becoming a scientist. She attended the best ranked pharmacy school in India, graduating at the top of her class.

Neha’s determination to learn about business as well as pharmacy spurred her on to take the highly competitive exams for entrance to business school in India, where she attained a score in the 97.9 percentile. Although she had no particular desire to come to America, her father supported and encouraged Neha to take the GRE and apply to graduate school in the US. She was soon accepted to St. John’s in New York City with a full scholarship to their pharmaceutical science Ph.D. program, where she went on to study within a prestigious lab under the guidance of an important mentor who had served as R&D head of the pharmaceutical company Novartis. A fun and fashionable young woman, she soon came to love America and her new life, quickly finding companies to fund her research and refining her objectives and interests. 

However, life within this lab ultimately turned out to be cutthroat and frustrating. Over time, Neha became depressed and homesick, even developing a stutter out of fear and anxiety. After discovering yoga and meditation, she regained her confidence to strive forward.  In a bold move, she decided to take her research to the chairman of the department, hoping for a lateral move into a new laboratory that would be more supportive of her innovative mindset. Her courage was rewarded when the chairman offered her funding and space in his own lab. Within months, she had redesigned all of her experiments, defended her thesis, and graduated with honors, earning her Ph D within one year. Upon graduating, Neha had become a force to be reckoned with, eloquent and even more determined. Since her core value had always been to keep her connection to her creator and share that light with the world, she realized that she needed to integrate this faith with her work. 

Neha’s first job at a big pharmaceutical company offered a high salary and red carpet treatment, which she initially embraced. Yet when it became clear that the company intended to file patents on her inventions - cannabinoid drug delivery systems - expecting $100M in sales but refusing to give her any recognition or royalties, she left. This was a risky choice, considering that her immigration status was tied to the job, leaving her with only 30 days to find a new position, but she was determined to keep her integrity and value her own work highly. Tragically, Neha’s mother passed away during this time. Rather than emotionally collapsing, Neha recalled her mother’s teachings, chiefly the conviction that a life not spent serving humanity is a wasted life. She became even more motivated to move forward, believing that living her life’s true purpose would honor her mother and that she should seize all of the opportunities offered to her. 

Neha’s father had raised her to fear any non-pharmaceutical drug, so the experience at the German pharmaceutical company was her first exposure to cannabis.  As she learned more about plant, she researched clinical data, spoke with venerated doctors, and had experiences with native American shamans as well practitioners of Indian traditional medicine systems Ayurveda and Siddha. She quickly realized cannabis was not only extremely safe, much safer than the opiods and hormones the German company was manufacturing, but also that it is a tremendous tool for healing that has been used by a variety of cultures for thousands of years. While her pharmaceutical company was slicing the plant into individual molecules they could patent for themselves, it was clear to her the full-power and therapeutic potential of that plant is only unlocked by working with the organic whole-flower of the plant. Thus, when she left the German company she was determined to work on the organic plant. During this time, Neha was initiated into the traditional ways of making sacred medicine, and fully realized her destiny was to serve this transformational medicine in service to humanity with no ego driving her prowess. 

Feeling that she had come full circle back to her roots and childhood passions, Neha now stood in her true power both as a scientist and as a woman. Acknowledged by the industry as a young genius, she was presented with six job offers from various cannabis companies, and she accepted a Chief Product Officer position at a firm  in Knoxville, TN that recently raised $30M in venture funding. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the company communicated their expectation that she would invent water solubilization technology for them but refused to give her royalties. Again, Neha left, putting her visa in danger, but she had faith that as long as she kept her values and dignity intact, a better solution would appear. Although at this time she was perceived by the industry as a maverick for refusing to give away her technology, she persisted, insisting that her focus be on healing people, not just contributing to the bottom dollar for pharmaceutical or cannabis companies.

Inspired by her remembrance of humanity’s longstanding history with plant-based medicine and buoyed by her mother’s advice, Neha decided to found her own company, whose mission would be to reintroduce ancient plants to the modern age. Cleverly bootstrapping this critical next phase, she used friends’ labs and even set up a temporary lab in her apartment, saving millions of dollars. By spring of 2020, Neha had completed the first iteration of Oneness OS®, a revolutionary advanced technology that fully solubilizes full spectrum hemp, making it 800% more powerful than any other CBD oil product in the market.