Is Sun Pharma founder Dilip Shanghvi readying a succession plan?

HYDERABAD: Is the 59-year-old Sun Pharma founder, Dilip Shanghvi, preparing a succession plan? A hint to this effect came from the pharma baron himself on Friday when he articulated his desire to pursue his long-cherished interests.

When asked if he had any plans to put in place a succession road map, during an interaction with media persons in Hyderabad on the sidelines of the book launch of Dr Reddy's Laboratories founder Dr K Anji Reddy's Memoir - 'An Unfinished Agenda', Shanghvi said, "My general approach is that there are things that I am actively involved with, I try not to talk too much about it."

Shanghvi, who has recently steered the biggest acquisition in the pharma sector by acquiring Ranbaxy, said in the coming days he would like to focus on his interest areas.

"First of all, I need to reach a situation, where I am not responsible for anything... in the sense of direct accountability. If I am managing something myself, then there is nobody reviewing that. I have things that I am very interested in... things like R&D. So I have to find a way... that even if I am involved, I am not responsible," he said when asked about his key areas of interest in the long run.

On the task at hand, which is the integration of Ranbaxy with Sun Pharma, he pointed out that one of the biggest challenges would be to gain the trust and confidence of pharma regulators. In the past few years, several Ranbaxy units have come under the scanner of international regulators over alleged quality concerns.

"One of the challenges for us would be Ranbaxy's product portfolio, which is very different from ours ... so how we are going to rapidly learn as a company to manage it, and also their significant presence in countries, where we have very small or no presence? So how do we use their experience to help the company achieve success in those geographies?" he added.