Dilip Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, is ranked No. 100 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list with a net worth of $25.6 billion. Sun Pharma is India’s largest pharmaceutical company.
Dilip Shanghvi was born on October 1, 1955, into a Jain family from Gujarat and raised in Kolkata, where his father ran a small wholesale business trading generic medicines. He studied at J. J. Ajmera High School and earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calcutta.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 100, with $25.6 billion
- Earlier estimate: as of May 2025 Forbes put him at $28.9 billion, the fifth-richest person in India, according to Wikipedia
Starting Sun Pharma
After working in his father’s pharmaceutical distribution business, Shanghvi decided to manufacture medicines himself rather than only sell other companies’ products.
- 1983: he founded Sun Pharmaceutical Industries with a small loan from his father, focusing first on psychiatric drugs; the company began with a single plant in Vapi, Gujarat
- 1993: profits had grown enough for him to invest in dedicated research and development facilities
- 2014: Sun Pharma bought Ranbaxy Laboratories for $4 billion, which made it India’s largest pharmaceutical company and one of the top global generic drug makers
- 2014–2018: the company faced regulatory problems and a fall in profits, and Shanghvi steered it through a recovery; by 2023 it reported profits above ₹8,000 crore, with strong growth in specialty medicines
Honours
- Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2016
- EY Entrepreneur of the Year in India in 2005
- Power list: India Today ranked him 8th in its list of India’s most powerful people in 2017
Why It Matters
Sun Pharma supplies generic and specialty medicines in India and abroad, and Shanghvi’s stake in it is the source of his fortune. He completes the Forbes top 100 for 2026, alongside Indian peers Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar and Lakshmi Mittal.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: The GIDC industrial estate in Vapi, Gujarat, where Sun Pharma began with a single plant (file photo; Dilip Shanghvi is not pictured). Photo: Raman Patel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
