“This is a pivot year for India…the articulation that proprietary products will be a substantial part of our business in India has never been done before,” Gupta told businessline, in a free-wheeling interaction.
He outlined Lupin’s evolving journey, the pharma industry’s growth and opportunities for a long-term innovation vision, even as the world presently grapples with a war in West Asia.
“We are (taking big bets)… we’ve got into it in all earnest,” Gupta said, hoping that Lupin “would have a bunch of products in clinical trial …for first time NCEs (new chemical entities) for India.” There are early innovations in China and Korea, he said, and Lupin would look at these discoveries, for further development.
Nilesh Gupta, Managing Director
Echoing thoughts similar to industry-peers, he said, “I don’t think being a large generic player gives you the right to be a large innovation player. The capabilities are different…. not necessarily India’s strong capability. But India can be leveraged for those capabilities. What I’m loving at this point of time is that we’re now starting to operate innovation at two levels…innovation for the world, and …innovation for India.”
Drilling down further, he says, in India it could be cardiac molecules, diabetes molecules, respiratory molecules, oncology molecules, all NCEs.
“But the cost of development is lower for just India as a market. The time to market is shorter. And therefore, you can have much more shots on goal…You’ll still have failure because you’re taking NCE risk eventually,” he said, adding that companies are okay with partnering just for India, not giving up their global rights.
“Clearly we are biting much deeper on the innovation side. … we are going to take bigger bites on technology, AI is not an if anymore, it’s on when will it make meaningful impact,” says Gupta.
War challenges
On helming a business in times of war, Gupta said, Covid showed the world how integral the pharma industry is to delivering medicines.
Today is an opportunity to scale even more elsewhere in the world, including India, he said, adding, there will be logistics and insurance price increases, for example, but they are short-term and will settle down.
“I would by no means make light of the misfortunes of war,” says Gupta. While the present year has been good for Lupin, with revenues over Rs 22,707 crore, Gupta says, the bigger picture is “innovation at scale …much bigger bites.”
Semaglutide, Day 1
Gupta confirms, Lupin will launch Day 1 after patent protection expires on semaglutide this week. (Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s weightloss and diabetes drugs Wegovy / Ozempic.)
Lupin will have two products (different indications), he said. “You’ll see prices coming down 60/70 percent, at max, from a good player,” Gupta said, adding, many will launch but the market will settle, and not more than 10 (from about 50 branded generics) will be relevant, six months later.
When medicines go generic (off-patent) – products priced at about ₹15,000-₹20,000 a month become ₹5/6,000 or even ₹10,000 a month, he said, lauding the Centre’s recent advisory on responsible product use, as it becomes available to more people.
Published on March 15, 2026