‘Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya, har fikr ko dhuein mein udaata chala gaya’, was a song that “DBG” sang often, reveals the biography of Lupin founder Desh Bandhu Gupta — Made in India.

The opening lines of the song from the 1961 film Hum Dono featuring Hindi cinema’s evergreen hero Dev Anand, speaks of going along with life and letting worries go up in smoke. But if the biography is anything to go by, DBG comes through as a person who did not merely go with the flow of life — he took hard bets and meticulously planned ahead.

His journey from the dusty tracks of Rajasthan to sky-scrapper lined Mumbai (then Bombay) is filled with challenges — from a delayed and expensive medical treatment back home in his childhood that left him with a limp, to business decisions that had the company in a virtual chokehold. But the son of a teacher, from a family of teachers, emerged to build a pharmaceutical company that along with peers scripted a healthy trajectory for itself, and the domestic industry.

The book runs on dual tracks, outlining DBG’s life story and journey building Lupin, alongside early stories of Cipla, the erstwhile Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Zydus-Cadila and Wockhardt — co-creators of an industry that supplies the developed and developing world with medicines.

The early days saw DBG take a huge leap from being an associate professor at BITS Pilani to eventually becoming an entrepreneur — buying the fledgling Lupin and its five products. Getting approvals and setting up production were not easy, but DBG stayed the course — not hesitating to move away from a production firm that made its early products, for reasons of quality. When DBG and his wife visited the outsourced production unit making the formulations for Lupin, they found dead mosquitoes in the vats containing the medicine. The area was infamous for mosquitoes, the book notes.

DBG’s wife Manju, coming from an entrepreneurial family, plays a critical role in his business decisions. At the launch of DBG’s biography, she spoke of his support for women, well before it became a point to remember for companies. He sent his oldest daughter Vinita to the US to understand the innovation ecosystem and set-up the business there (1996). Today, Vinita is Lupin’s Chief Executive Officer. His other daughter Kavita played a critical role in India, returning abruptly from Harvard, to help navigate a way through Lupin’s darkest hours in business.

Some incidents the book recounts reveal the challenges of the time — the strike at their Kalina factory, for instance. The narrative paints a dramatic visual image, almost out of a Hindi film of yesteryear — DBG and his brother stood on the equipment when union members threatened to carry it out, it says.

The other narrative that lingers on for a reader is the heart-rending one of the air-crash (Indian Airlines, 1993) in which DBG lost his father and youngest brother Brij — just months head of the company’s IPO. Brij survived the crash, but went back into the wreckage to rescue his father.

Having lost his mother a year ago, and father and brother in a matter of days, the book notes: “Physically, he (DBG) was still strong enough to soldier on, but the mental challenges impacted his day-to-day functioning.” DBG plunged himself into work, the book says.

Critical policy changes

In the parallel narrative on the pharma industry, the book points to two critical policy changes — India’s Patents Act (1970), and America’s Hatch-Waxman Act (1984). The first recognised process patents, allowing companies to make an innovator product through a different process. And the second paved the way for generics with six-month exclusivity for the first-to-file generic on a new molecule.

In this context, the book famously quotes Cipla doyen Dr Yusuf Hamied’s statement to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: ‘Madam, should millions of Indians be denied the use of a life-saving drug just because the inventor doesn’t like the colour of our skin?’ Dr Hamied recollected this, when asked at the panel discussion during DBG’s book launch. Cipla sold cardiac drug propranolol, the first beta blocker in India. This was a generic version of the drug invented by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in England, and globally marketed in 1965. Cipla introduced its version of the drug in India (1972), only to face a patent infringement suit from ICI. The Indian patent landscape has changed in India, since 2005, to honour product patents again.

While DBG steered his ship, he also brought in people to improve governance and growth, for instance. Some decisions worked (Kamal Sharma), while some high-profile appointments did not (Humayun Dhanrajgir), the book reveals. Ramesh Juneja (who founded Mankind Pharma), had a stint with Lupin. So did Sudarshan Jain — Lupin’s first IIM Ahmedabad graduate hire — who later helmed the multinational Abbott in India. He is spokesperson of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance — a platform representing large domestic drugmakers.

The narrative of the book could get confusing, especially for a non-industry person, with timelines going back and forth. But the easy narration of incidents that built the industry, keeps it engaging.

Despite all odds, Lupin was among the early companies to outline a clear succession plan, appointing Vinita (based in the US) as CEO, and son Nilesh as Managing Director, in 2013. The sibling-duo have since navigated new business challenges as they build on the vision DBG gave them.

Title: Made In India: The Story of Desh Bandhu Gupta, Lupin and Indian Pharma

Authors: Manish Sabharwal and Sundeep Khanna

Publisher: Juggernaut Books

Price: ₹799

Published on March 22, 2026