Dilip Shanghvi Biography

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.