A small drug business that kept buying
Shanghvi's fortune comes from Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, a company he started in 1983 with a small plant in Vapi, Gujarat, and a few medicines for psychiatric conditions. Focusing on chronic illnesses gave the company products that patients used for long periods, and the choice of a specialty that bigger rivals paid less attention to helped it grow among Indian doctors.
Sun listed on the Indian stock exchanges in 1994. Shanghvi then used the company's shares and cash flow to make a long series of acquisitions, often buying businesses that were in trouble and fixing their operations. In 1997 he bought Caraco, a generic drugmaker in Detroit, which gave Sun a base in the United States. In 2010, after a long legal fight with its founding family, Sun took control of Taro Pharmaceutical, an Israeli company strong in skin treatments.
The largest deal came in 2014, when Sun agreed to buy Ranbaxy Laboratories from Japan's Daiichi Sankyo. Ranbaxy had been weakened by quality problems at its factories, and the purchase, completed in 2015, made Sun the largest drugmaker in India and one of the largest generic producers in the world. His family's controlling stake in Sun is the main source of his wealth.
Sun Pharma and family holdings
Shanghvi's holdings include:
- Sun Pharmaceutical Industries: generic and branded medicines sold in India, the United States and many emerging markets, along with a growing line of specialty drugs
- Taro Pharmaceutical: the dermatology business, which Sun took fully private in 2024 after buying out minority shareholders
- Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company: a research company spun out of Sun in 2007 and listed separately
- Suzlon Energy: the Shanghvi family invested in the wind turbine maker in 2015 as part of an effort to rescue it
In recent years Sun has shifted toward specialty medicines, where profits are higher than in generics. Its products include Ilumya for psoriasis and treatments for skin and eye conditions. In 2023 it bought Concert Pharmaceuticals, a United States biotech developing a treatment for the hair loss condition alopecia areata, and later added other specialty businesses.
Shanghvi was managing director for decades. In 2025 he took the role of executive chairman, handing the managing director post to a longtime company executive. His son Aalok and daughter Vidhi have held senior positions in the company.
From Amreli to Kolkata and back west
Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi was born in 1955 in Amreli, a town in Gujarat, and grew up in Kolkata. His father ran a wholesale business distributing generic medicines in the city, and as a young man Shanghvi worked in the family trade. He earned a commerce degree from the University of Calcutta.
Working in distribution taught him which medicines doctors prescribed and how the trade worked. He noticed that many products came from a small number of manufacturers and decided that making medicines would be a better business than selling other companies' products. With modest funds from his family, he set up his first manufacturing operation in Vapi in southern Gujarat, and the company later established its headquarters in Mumbai.
He has been known throughout his career as a quiet executive who avoids publicity and spends much of his time on deals and on the details of research and manufacturing. He has served on the boards of business groups and government advisory bodies in India.
The Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri in 2016 for his contribution to trade and industry.
Science awards and social programs
Shanghvi's main charitable work is carried out through the Sun Pharma Science Foundation, which gives awards and fellowships to Indian scientists in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. The awards recognize both established researchers and younger scientists, and they have become well known in Indian science.
Sun Pharma also runs social programs as part of the corporate social responsibility spending required of large Indian companies. These include mobile health clinics in rural areas, efforts against malaria, nutrition programs and support for schools and sanitation near its manufacturing sites in India.
Shanghvi has supported industry efforts to improve the reputation of Indian drugmakers abroad. After Sun bought Ranbaxy, the company had to invest heavily to fix quality problems at former Ranbaxy plants so that they could again supply regulated markets such as the United States.
He has spoken in interviews about the importance of long term thinking, of buying businesses at the right price and of building research capacity in India. He lives in Mumbai.