Sun Pharma
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, that manufactures and sells pharmaceutical formulations and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) primarily in India and the United States. It is largest Pharma Company in India and 4th largest in the world. The company offers formulations in various therapeutic areas, such as cardiology, psychiatry, neurology, gastroenterology and diabetology. It also provides APIs such as warfarin, carbamazepine, etodolac, and clorazepate, as well as anti-cancers, steroids, peptides, sex hormones, and controlled substances.
Sun Pharmaceuticals was founded by Dilip Shanghvi in 1983 in Vapi, Gujarat, with five products to treat psychiatry ailments. Cardiology products were introduced in 1987 followed by gastroenterology products in 1989. Today it is the largest chronic prescription company in India and a market leader in psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, gastroenterology and nephrology.
The 2014 acquisition of Ranbaxy made Sun the largest pharma company in India, the largest Indian pharma company in the US, and the 5th largest specialty generic company globally.
Over 72% of Sun Pharma sales are from markets outside India, primarily in the United States. The US is the single largest market, accounting for about 50% of the company's turnover; in all, formulations or finished dosage forms, account for 93% of the turnover. Manufacturing is across 26 locations, including plants in the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Israel. In the United States, the company markets a large basket of generics, with a strong pipeline awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Sun Pharma was listed on the stock exchange in 1994 in an issue oversubscribed 55 times. The founding family continues to hold a majority stake in the company. Today Sun Pharma is the second largest and the most profitable pharmaceutical company in India, as well as the largest pharmaceutical company by market capitalisation on the Indian exchanges.
The Indian pharmaceutical industry has become the third-largest producer in the world in terms of volumes and is poised to grow into an industry of $36.7 billion from $20 billion in 2015. In terms of value India still stands at number 14 in the world.
In 2009 Sun Pharma's Caraco Pharmaceutical's plant in Detroit was closed due to unsanitary conditions resulting in the seizure of $20 million of drugs by the FDA for contamination issues.
In December 2016 the FDA sent Sun a warning letter about nine violations at its manufacturing plant in Halol.
Sun Pharma requested USFDA to withdraw approval for 28 Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) belonging to its wholly owned subsidiary Ranbaxy Laboratories.
In December 2014, the Competition Commission of India approved Sun Pharma's $3.2 billion bid to buy Ranbaxy Laboratories, but ordered the firms to divest seven products to ensure the deal doesn't harm competition.
In March 2015, Sun Pharma announced it had agreed to buy GlaxoSmithKline's opiates business in Australia to strengthen its pain management portfolio.
In 2023, Sun Pharma acquired Concert Pharmaceuticals, a late-stage biotechnology company in USA, a 60% stake in animal healthcare company - Vivaldis Animal Health and Foods Pvt ltd. from its existing shareholders for Rs 143.30 crore.
In September 2023, Sun Pharma went into a licensing agreement with Pharmazz Inc.
In January 2024, Sun Pharma entered into a definitive merger with Taro Pharmaceuticals to acquire the remaining stake in Taro Pharma for $347.73 Million. Taro Pharma, the U.S.-based unit of India’s leading drugmaker Sun Pharma Ltd, has unveiled a merger agreement with its parent company. Under this agreement, Sun Pharma, the controlling shareholder of Taro, will acquire all outstanding shares of its subsidiary.
In March 2025, it was announced Sun Pharma had acquired the Waltham, Massachusetts headquartered immunotherapy and targeted oncology treament company, Checkpoint Therapeutics for $355 million.
Serum Institute
Serum Institute of India (SII) is an Indian biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals company. It is the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines. It is located in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, India, and was founded by Cyrus Poonawalla in 1966. The company is a subsidiary of the holding company Poonawalla Investment and Industries.
The Serum Institute of India was founded in 1966 in Pune. The company set out to produce immunobiologicals, which were imported into India at high prices. Among the first products the Serum Institute of India manufactured in large quantities were the tetanus antitoxin, snake antivenom, DPT vaccine, and MMR vaccine. The company's product lines was expanded to include different types of vaccines against bacterial or virus infections, combination vaccines, influenza vaccine, and meningococcal vaccine. Besides vaccine the company also manufactures antisera, blood plasma, and hormone products. As of 2014 the vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India have been used in international vaccination programmes run by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Today the Serum Institute of India is run by the Poonawalla Group and engages in research, development, and manufacturing.
In 2009 the company began developing an intranasal swine flu vaccine. The company's first international acquisition was Bilthoven Biologicals, a biopharmaceutical company in Netherlands, in 2012. In 2016, with support from US-based Mass Biologics of University of Massachusetts Medical School, the Serum Institute of India invented a fast-acting anti-rabies agent, Rabies Human Monoclonal Antibody (RMAb), also known as Rabishield.
As of 2020, the company is the world's largest vaccine producer by number of doses produced, manufacturing around 1.5 billion doses of vaccines each year. The products developed include tuberculosis vaccine Tubervac (BCG), Poliovac for poliomyelitis, and other vaccinations for the childhood vaccination schedule.
The company has partnered with the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which is developing AZD1222 (Covishield) in partnership with the University of Oxford. It is reported that Serum Institute of India would provide 100 million (10 crore) doses of the vaccine for India and other low and middle-income countries. This target was later increased to 1 billion doses by the end of 2021. It is estimated to be priced at ?225 (around $3) per dose. In September 2020, trials were halted by DCGI after a volunteer in Oxford developed illness following vaccination, but were soon resumed after consent by the British regulators. In December 2020, the Serum Institute of India sought emergency approval for the vaccine developed with AstraZeneca which was approved a month later. In March 2021, an agreement was reached to supply some doses to the UK.
Serum Institute of India has also reached an agreement with Novavax for the production of Novavax’s NVX-CoV2373 (Covovax) vaccine for India and other low and middle-income countries. The company will also produce Codagenix's nasally administered COVID-19 vaccine CDX-005 (tradename COVI-VAC).
The company is also expected to manufacture Sputnik V vaccine in India in collaboration with Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology after receiving approval from DGCI.
The company is also manufacturing Sputnik V vaccine in India in collaboration with Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology after receiving approval from DCGI. On 13 July 2021, RDIF published a press release saying SII is starting the production of Sputnik V doses in September 2021. They intend to produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine in India per year.
On October 8, 2023, the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine received a recommendation for use by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) of the World Health Organization and the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG).
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The company was founded by Anji Reddy, who previously worked in the mentor institute Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited. Dr. Reddy's manufactures and markets a wide range of pharmaceuticals in India and overseas. The company has over 190 medications, 60 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for drug manufacture, diagnostic kits, critical care, and biotechnology products.
Dr. Reddy's began as a supplier to Indian drug manufacturers, but it soon started exporting to other less-regulated markets that had the advantage of not having to spend time and money on a manufacturing plant that would gain approval from a drug licensing body such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By the early 1990s, the expanded scale and profitability from these unregulated markets enabled the company to begin focusing on getting approval from drug regulators for their formulations and bulk drug manufacturing plants - in more-developed economies. This allowed their movement into regulated markets such as the US and Europe. In 2014, Dr. Reddy Laboratories was listed among 1200 of India's most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory, a brand analytics company.
By 2007, Dr. Reddy's had seven FDA plants producing active pharmaceutical ingredients in India and seven FDA-inspected and ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environmental management) certified plants making patient-ready medications – five of them in India and two in the UK.
In 2010, the family-controlled Dr Reddy's denied that it was in talks to sell its generics business in India to US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had been suing the company for alleged patent infringement after Dr Reddy's announced that it intended to produce a generic version of atorvastatin, marketed by Pfizer as Lipitor, an anti-cholesterol medication. Reddy's was already linked to UK pharmaceuticals multinational Glaxo Smithkline.
In March 2024, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories partnered with Pharmazz Inc. to bring life-saving Centhaquine (Lyfaquin) to India.