Leadership
& Philosophy

“I will never risk capital, but I will risk profit.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

The distinction is unusually precise and it maps onto the company’s financing history. Sun Pharma has consistently operated with modest leverage and funded acquisitions from internal accruals and equity. Contested, multi-year transactions such as Taro consumed profit and management attention over several years; they did not place the balance sheet in jeopardy. On this reading, the willingness to accept a long, uncertain, expensive integration is not a contradiction of caution but an expression of it.

“Our philosophy is that if we understand 70 percent of an idea, we are prepared to take the risk and learn 30 percent along the way.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

This is a stated threshold for action rather than a general endorsement of boldness. It sets a bar high enough to exclude speculation and low enough to permit movement before certainty arrives. It also implies an organisation capable of learning quickly after commitment — which is what the Caraco and Taro integrations, both slow and difficult, actually required.

“We make decisions that are in the long-term interest of the business, even if they might have some negative short-term impacts.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

“Ultimately, we believe we should be better in each of our businesses than we were last year.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

Two decisions illustrate the principle. The demerger of Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company in 2007 removed loss-making long-horizon research from the commercial accounts, protecting it from quarterly pressure. The decision to rebuild the United States business around specialty medicines after 2015 required years of investment before it produced the US$1.42 billion innovative-medicines revenue reported for the financial year ended March 2026.

“One is focus. We not only focused on finding ways to work with specialists in different therapy areas, starting with psychiatry…” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

“The second belief is that there’s an opportunity to build a successful, multinational pharma business out of India.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

The sequence of therapy areas — psychiatry from 1983, cardiology from 1988, then dermatology, ophthalmology and oncology through acquisition — describes a company that widened only after establishing depth. The second statement is worth noting for its date: the conviction that a multinational pharmaceutical business could be built from India was not obvious when the company was founded.

“My current thinking is that it’s better for us to license a product that’s closer to market than to pursue long-term development cycles.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

The company’s specialty portfolio reflects exactly this. Tildrakizumab was licensed from Merck in 2014 rather than discovered internally; the dry-eye, acne, alopecia and skin-cancer franchises arrived through the acquisitions of Ocular Technologies, Concert Pharmaceuticals and Checkpoint Therapeutics. It is a strategy that trades the possibility of a very large discovery return for a much shorter and more predictable path from capital to revenue.

“Before I ask people for loyalty, I am prepared to be loyal to them.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

“If you hire capable people, it’s possible to get extraordinary performance from them.” Dilip Shanghvi, interviewed by Gautam Kumra, McKinsey & Company

Tenure at Sun Pharma is long by industry standards, and the 2025 succession bears the same signature: Kirti Ganorkar, appointed Managing Director with effect from 1 September 2025, had by then spent twenty-nine years in the company across business development, mergers and acquisitions, specialty expansion and international market entry. Accepting the IAA Business Leader of the Year award in August 2026, Shanghvi was reported to have said that he takes his satisfaction from the successes of his team, and that businesses succeed when an environment exists to attract capable people, keep them and value their contribution.

“Our story is all about incremental growth. We’re not looking for big leaps; we prefer small jumps.” Dilip Shanghvi, quoted in his Forbes profile

“Stay humble, never let success become a crown, or failure weigh you down.” Dilip Shanghvi, in Forbes India, 30 April 2025

There is a tension worth naming here rather than smoothing over. A stated preference for small jumps sits alongside the Ranbaxy merger and the announced US$11.75 billion acquisition of Organon — two of the largest transactions in Indian corporate history. The most coherent reading is that the incrementalism applies to operating strategy, where the company has consistently compounded narrow advantages, while acquisitions are treated as a separate instrument, used rarely and at moments when an asset is unusually mispriced or a market position is unusually available.