Dilip Shanghvi (born 1 October 1955) is an Indian billionaire businessman and one of the country's richest people. He founded Sun Pharmaceuticals The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2016. India Today magazine ranked him 8th in India's most powerful people of 2017 list.
According to Forbes, as of July 2021, Shanghvi is the 9th richest person in India with a net worth of US$11 billion.
Dilip Shanghvi is an Indian businessman counted amongst the richest persons in India. He is the founder and managing director of Sun Pharmaceuticals, a multinational pharmaceutical company. It is the largest chronic prescription company in India and offers formulations in diverse therapeutic areas, such as psychiatry, neurology, gastroenterology, cardiology and diabetology. Born in a small town as the son of a wholesale drug distributor, Shanghvi graduated from the University of Calcutta with a bachelor’s degree in commerce. As a young man he worked along with his father helping him in his wholesale generic drugs business when the idea of opening his own drug manufacturing unit struck him. Despite his lack of a formal science education, he started Sun Pharmaceutical Industries with a two-man marketing team and five products. Having started small, he focused on eventually growing his company and within years was exporting his products to neighboring countries. He soon began acquiring other companies which led him to grow his business manifold. His notable international acquisitions include America’s Caraco Pharma and Israel's Taro Pharma. In 2014 he acquired Ranbaxy making Sun Pharmaceuticals the largest pharma company in India and the fifth largest specialty generic company globally. In 2015, he overtook Mukesh Ambani as the richest person in India
Dilip Shanghvi was born on 1 October 1955 in Amreli, a small town in Gujarat, India, to Shantilal N. Shanghvi and his wife Kumud. His father was a wholesale drug distributor.
He completed his schooling from J. J. Ajmera High School following which he graduated from Bhawanipur Education Society College. He then proceeded to earn a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calcutta
After completing his education he started helping his father in his wholesale generic drugs business in Kolkata as a drugs distributor. It was during this time that the idea of starting his own drugs manufacturing company came to him.
He borrowed Rs. 10,000 from his father and established Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in Vapi, Gujarat, in 1982. The business was started with a two-man marketing team and a small manufacturing facility where only five psychiatry products were produced.
Shanghvi and his team worked hard to grow the business a little at a time, and by the early 1990s the company had opened its own research and manufacturing facilities. New product lines in the fields of cardiology and gastroenterology had also been added.
By the early 1990s the company had also begun exporting to neighboring countries. In 1994, the company went public.
Under Shanghvi’s leadership the company continued to grow at a fast rate. An astute businessman, he adopted an extensive acquisition strategy to expand the company. In 1996, he bought a drug manufacturing plant of Knoll Pharma in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra—his first acquisition. By this time he was also able to expand the company’s reach to 24 countries.
In the 1990s when Indian pharmaceuticals were engaged in fierce competition with multinational drug makers, Shanghvi focused his resources on creating a portfolio of niche generic drugs and specialty and chronic therapies such as psychiatry, cardiovascular, neurology, oncology and dermatology. This strategy paid off and his company registered phenomenal growth over next decade.
In 1997, Sun Pharma made its first international acquisition when it acquired the loss-making Detroit-based Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, aiming to expand Sun's reach in the United States. Around this time it also took equity stakes in two prominent Indian drug manufacturers, Tamilnadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals and MJ Pharmaceuticals.
Having successfully expanded his business in the US following the acquisition of Caraco, Shanghvi continued with his acquisition strategy, expanding at a rapid rate. Between 1999 and 2012, he acquired more than a dozen companies and brands.
In 2007, he began the procedure to acquire Israel's Taro Pharmaceutical Industries and managed to finally purchase it in 2010 following a three-year takeover battle. This acquisition helped Sun Pharma almost double its US revenues to more than $1 billion.
Major Works
Dilip Shanghvi is the founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company which is the largest chronic prescription company in India. It is also the largest Indian pharma company in the US and the fifth largest specialty generic company globally.
Awards & Achievements
In 2011, he was presented with the ‘CNN-IBN Indian of the Year’ in the business category.
The Government of India awarded Dilip Shanghvi the Padma Shri—the fourth highest civilian award in the nation—in 2016.
Personal Life & Legacy
He is married to Vibha, and the couple has two children: Aalok and Vidhi.
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