Indian Pharma Companies listed in 2-Billion Dollar Club

What is a major milestone for an International Specialty Pharma company?

To cross the one-billion dollar mark in revenues.

What could be the second major milestone?

To cross the two-billion dollar mark in revenues.

In 2013, there are three Indian Pharma companies that have crossed the coveted two-billion dollar mark in revenues. The latest or the most recent member of this ambitious, hardworking two-billion dollar club is the prodigious Sun Pharma. Lupin with annual revenues of $1.8-billion is knocking on the doors rearing to get in.

Ranbaxy, although has been in the news a lot for wrong reasons recently was the first India-based Pharma company (as it has been acquired by Japanese Pharma major Daichi  in 2008) to cross the $2-billion mark in 2011. Dr. Reddy’s achieved it by December 2012. Sun Pharma did it by March 2013.

Sun Pharma

While it took 27 years for the first $1 billion in revenues for Sun Pharma, the next billion came up very fast in just a matter of three years. Sun Pharma has crossed two milestones. The first one is crossing US $2-billion in revenues. The second one is crossing ₹ 1lakh-crore mark  (around US $ 16 billion) in market capitalization.

Started with just five products in 1983, in thirty years Sun Pharma took giant leaps to cross the coveted 2-billion-dollar mark in revenues in thirty years with twenty-six manufacturing facilities in four continents. Sun Pharma has three-pronged strategy to propel itself into the next orbit: Focus on chronic therapies, differentiation through technically complex products, and speed to market. All these at sensible costs by achieving cost leadership.

Dr. Reddy’s Labs

Dr. Reddy’s defined their purpose as providing affordable and innovative medicines for healthier lives. Their strategy is to achieve this by leveraging industry-leading science and technology, product offering and customer service through operating excellence. Their business model spans three segments: generics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and custom services, and proprietary products.

Ranbaxy

Ranbaxy’s mission is to enrich lives globally, with quality and affordable pharmaceuticals. The company has a ground presence in forty countries and its products are being sold in about 150 countries across the world. Ranbaxy’s strategic focus is threefold: focus on building worldwide branded generics business, leveraging Ranbaxy’s strong presence in emerging markets that are growing rapidly, and to continue to create exclusive and niche opportunities.

Common Thread

What is the common thread that has been running among these three winning Indian Pharma companies? Right from inception they have viewed world as their market. All of them have followed the winning strategy of TEVA, the global leader for the generic industry that has reached uncommon heights.

They have reached the critical mass that is required to fuel their ambitious growth plans through strategic acquisitions of products, facilities and companies to create a beachhead, or augment their presence in the difficult-to-penetrate markets. All of them have upgraded themselves periodically to world class levels in technology, and manufacturing to be globally competitive. They have targeted the US generic market which is the largest and most lucrative in the world. They have aggressively pursued a PARA IV-Challenge route to gain the 180-day exclusivity, which is the dream of any generic company and took considerable risks.

They have been steadily stepping up their R&D capabilities along with substantial increase in investments in creating a research and development infrastructure and the required knowledge base to launch even the drug-discovery programs. All three companies have their own pipelines for abbreviated new drug applications and new molecular entities.

They have also entered into strategic alliances with global Pharma majors for generic alliances in emerging markets. Ranbaxy is a part of Japanese drug major. Sun Pharma has entered into a strategic alliance with Merck. Dr. Reddy’s have entered into a strategic alliance for bio-similars with Merck Serono.

These companies are international and are increasingly acquiring the international character with manufacturing facilities in a number of countries. Over three-fourths to four-fifths of their revenues from international sales. Sales from their domestic sales account for about 26 per cent for Sun Pharma and less than 20 per cent for both Dr. Reddy’s and Ranbaxy.

What is the next milestone for each of these companies?

5-billion dollars in annual revenues? Lupin, the company that is close on heels of these three winning companies has already announced that it is determined to achieve US $5-billion in revenues by 2018. Surely the three frontrunners would like to achieve it before that.

(From left to right) Dilip Shanghvi, Cyrus Poonawalla, Pankaj Patel, Desh Bandhu Gupta, Dr. Yusuf Hamied, Habil Korakiwala, Murali Divi,
Dr. K. Anji Reddy, Glen Saldanha

Nine out of the top hundred wealthiest Indians are from India’s rapidly progressing, globally competitive pharmaceutical industry. Six of them have founded their companies while the other three have been the second generation entrepreneurs from the founding families who have steered the companies and made them globally competitive after taking the reins.

Forbes.com described these magnificent nine in their article, India’s Pharma Kings Are The Country’s Big Winners, as their combined net worth amounted to US $25.06 billion and what is more important is that their gains at US $6.05 billion over the previous year accounted for two-thirds of the entire increase in wealth for the 100 richest Indians overall.

Here are the super achievers who created wealth and built globally competitive organizations.

1. Dilip Shanghavi has become the wealthiest pharmaceutical entrepreneur in the world and the fifth wealthiest Indian. How did he achieve what he achieved? By building India’s most-valued pharmaceutical company. Therapeutic segment by therapeutic segment. Acquisition by acquisition. Market by Market. He founded Sun Pharma a globally competitive pharmaceutical company that is making rapid strides towards becoming one of the ten fastest growing specialty pharma companies in the world with US $1.69 billion in sales, thirty-years ago in 1983. His net worth is US $9.2 billion.

  2. Cyrus Poonawalla CO-founded Serum Institute of India in 1966 along with his brother Zavary Poonawalla. and built it to make the fifth largest vaccine manufacturing company in the world by volume and about US $250 million in sales. The top four vaccine makers are GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck and Novartis. The company supplies vaccines to about 140 countries in the world other than those in North America. His net worth is US $3.3 billion.

3. Pankaj Patel the current chairman and managing director of Zydus Cadila, who took the mantle from his late father Ramanbhai Patel has set his eyes on internationalizing it ever since he took charge. The company is today not only the fifth-largest pharma company in India but also has a respectable presence in a number of international markets such as US, France, Spain, Japan and other markets in Asia and Africa. The company has crossed the coveted US $ one-billion mark in sales. His net worth is US $2.50 billion.

4.Desh Bandhu Gupta, who borrowed from his wife’s savings to start a tiny pharma company, Lupin in 1968 took it to uncommon heights and made it one of the rapidly growing international specialty pharma companies with US $1.35 billion in sales today. Lupin is among the top five pharma companies in India and the world’s leading manufacturer of anti-tuberculous drugs. The company has its footprints in over seventy countries across the globe. His net worth is US $2.35 billion.

5. Yusuf Hamied took the reins of the company, Cipla in 1972 on his father’s demise. From a mere ₹ 166 lakhs in 1966, he took the company to US $1.57-billion in sales today with its footprints virtually all over the globe. What is significant about Hamied is that in the process of building a huge business for his company, he always gave his humanitarian concerns and values a high priority. He is known throughout the world for selling the anti-Aids drugs to the poor at a fraction of the price that MNCs charge. He is now doing the same for anticancer drugs. His net worth is US $2.0 billion.

6. Habil Korakiwala founded Wockhardt in the 1960s and made it as one of India’s leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with its foot prints in more than twenty countries across the world including highly regulated markets such as USA, UK, Ireland, France and Germany. It is a leading Indian generic company in the UK. The company is on its way to cross the coveted US $ One-billion in sales with present sales of US $908 million today. His net worth is US $1.80 billion

7. Murali Divi, pharmacist and youngest of 13 siblings started Divis Labs in 1990 with a primary focus of developing new processes for the production of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) and drug-intermediates. The company has grown clocking over US $350 million in sales. What is noteworthy about the company’s performance is that close to 90 per cent of its sales are from exports, with regulatory markets such as US and European Union being its focus. His net worth is 1.49 billion.

8. K. Anji Reddy has been playing a pioneering role in Indian pharmaceutical industry ever since he founded Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in 1984. First, he has been instrumental in placing India in the bulk drug map of the world. Second, he proved to the world that drug research need not be prohibitively expensive by suggesting a collaborative model. Dr. Reddy’s today has become the fastest Indian company to reach the US$2-billion mark in world wide sales. His company is one of the most respected international specialty pharma companies in the world with over three-fourths of its sales coming from international markets. His net worth is US $1.39 billion.

9. Glenn Saldanha, Chairman and managing director of Glenmark propelled his company to be among the rapidly growing specialty pharma companies right from the day he joined as a director in 1998. Today, Glenmark is among the top 100 pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms in the world with total revenues of over US $820 million, three-fourths of which, come from international sales and out-licensing. His net worth is US $1.03

What is common among all these wealth creators? They all have a very clear vision about the future and can see it before it arrives. They are all driven by a powerful ambition of leading their companies into the big league. They are focused and determined to achieve their dreams. A careful study of their game plans reveals these simple and eternal principles of success.

Their uncommon success stories are truly inspirational and bound to inspire a whole generation of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs and executives to take the Indian pharmaceutical industry to the next level, the research-based pharmaceutical markets and drug discovery area in the coming years.