India is the home of several successful billionaires including Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar, Radhakishan Damani, Savitri Jindal, Dilip Shanghvi, etc. And here, we will be digging around the story of Mr Dilip Shanghvi, who is the founder and MD of a billion-dollar company, known as ‘Sun Pharmaceuticals’. Besides pharmaceutical industries, he has personally invested in many other companies concerned with Renewable energy, including the Oil and Gas companies.
Company
Mr Dilip Shanghvi founded ‘Sun Pharmaceuticals’ in 1983, which, at present, is a billion-dollar company. Sun Pharmaceuticals manufactures vaccines, generic drugs, contact lenses, diagnostics and other related products in a variety of fields, including psychiatry, cardiology, neurology, nephrology, Opthalmology and gastroenterology.
Net WorthMr
The personal overall net worth of Mr Shanghvi is about 15 billion (1500 Crores) USD, as in the year 2022.
Achievements:
Mr Shanghvi, being very successful, has bagged a lot of achievements under his name. Back in 2011, he received Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year and was titled as the Indian of the year in business by the CNN-IBN. In 2014, he got the Business Leader of the year award from Economic Times. Then, in 2016, he was given the civilian honour – Padma Shri by the government of India.
Also, in 2017, the India Today magazine ranked him as 8th in the most powerful people of India list, and the prestigious Forbes also ranked him as the 14th richest person in India, as in October 2021. He was made a trustee of Oxford University’s Rhodes Scholarship Program in 2017. In 2018, the Indian Government appointed him to the Reserve Bank of India’s 21 -member central board committee. All India Management Association (AIMA) honoured Mr. Dilip with the JRD TATA Corporate
Leadership Award. He also sits as the chairman of the board of governors at IIT Bombay.
Family Background
Mr Dilip Shanghvi belongs to a Gujarati Jain family settled in Kolkata. His father, Mr Shantilal Shanghvi, was engaged in a business of wholesale trading and distribution of pharmaceutical drugs. His mother Mrs Kumud S Shanghvi, was a homemaker and used to look after her children. At present, he is married to Mrs Vibha Shanghvi who owns a stake of about 0.43% in his company shares, and they have two children together, who are also a part of his firm Sun Pharma.
Success Story
The path to reach success is always accompanied by a lot of hindrances and obstacles, but the key to success has always been to focus on your goals, not your limitations, and that’s exactly what Dilip Shanghvi did in his journey to become a self-made billionaire.
He was born into a middle-class Gujarati family, and is well-educated, having his bachelor’s degree in Commerce, from the University of Calcutta.
Mr Dilip, who, from the very beginning of his journey, believed that business itself is a gamble and means taking well-calculated risks, began his entrepreneurial journey by taking one of the most unconventional, calculated, innovative and biggest risks of his life. Earlier, he started by helping his father in his business, and it was while working with his father in wholesale dealership and distribution of generic drugs that he developed a realisation and an urge to make his drugs instead of selling drugs made by other companies, and that is from where his journey to success began.
So, he borrowed capital of Rs. 10,000 from his father in 1982 and opened up his first drug manufacturing unit at Vapi with one psychiatric drug at that time, and later named his start-up as Sun Pharmaceuticals, as Sun is the ultimate source of the ultimate and endless energy. Those were the days when there wasn’t much competition in the pharma industry, so Sun Pharma could manage to perform well.
Mr Shanghvi initially used only five products to treat psychiatric ailments, and gradually his company stepped into manufacturing cardiology and gastroenterology related drugs and products. Sun Pharma is currently one of the largest chronic prescription companies in India, leading in psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, gastroenterology and nephrology related products.
In the first year itself, Mr Dilip tasted a pinch of success as his production unit did a quite profitable business, which motivated him to set up his factory, for which again his father came to his rescue and loaned him the required money.
Gradually, Sun Pharma began making its presence felt in India. In 1993, he re-invested the profits earned by the company to set up his research centre. By that time, the company had expanded from psychiatry drugs to cardiology, respiratory, diabetic and gastroenterology related drugs, as he believed that just like a car, with the growing age, a human body too needs attention and repair, for which the treatment is likely to continue for a long time, due to which he preferred focusing on long-duration drugs.
In 1997, the company began its international acquisition by buying the Detroit-based Caraco Pharmaceutical Labs, and also took equity stakes in some prominent Indian drug manufacturers of that time, including Dadha Pharmaceuticals and MJ Pharmaceuticals. He has been balanced and consistent in planning his company’s expansion very well. His company was enabled into the ophthalmologic fields post taking over the Millet Labs.
In 2012, Sun Pharma acquired two of the prominent US-based Pharma companies, including URL Pharma Inc and DUSA Pharma Inc, which initiated the expansion of Sun Pharma into the United States. Sun Pharma’s position in the overseas market started growing up with the acquisition of Israel-based company Taro, which aided him in tapping the customer potential in Canada and other foreign markets.
An even more successful and bigger decision he made was to acquire his much-scandalised Indian rival company, Ranbaxy, which turned out to be a game-changing decision for his company, allowing Sun Pharma to spread into the emerging markets where Ranbaxy was already popular. Thus, these acquisitions paved the way for supremacy in the pharmaceutical industries not only in India, but also in the US and a portion of Europe as well, and all these decisions were made under the leadership of Mr Dilip himself.
Also, Mr Dilip served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sun Pharma only till 2012, after which he stepped down his position to Managing Director (MD) of the company.
His Motivations:
As mentioned at the beginning itself, it was his urge to make and sell his drugs instead of selling drugs produced by other companies that motivated him to start his venture by setting up his first drug product unit back in 1982, and since then, his company has been expanding and there has been no looking back. The support he got from his father, both morally and financially, was another reason that kept him going.
Mr Dilip believed that a good entrepreneur should be able to spot an opportunity before others, risk his money for future opportunities, create a team of like-minded people and most importantly, keeps learning all the time, from each and everything happening around him, and he has very well incorporated these qualities in himself, due to which he climbed the ladders to be one of the most successful and greatest entrepreneurs of all time – a successful, self-made and respected Billionaire of India.
