Glenn Saldanha

Glenn Mario Saldanha (born 1969) is an Indian businessman who has been chairman and managing director of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals since 2001. His father, Gracias Saldanha, founded the company in 1977 as a manufacturer of generic drugs. Under Glenn Saldanha's tenure, Glenmark expanded from its branded-generics business into drug discovery and entered partnerships with multinational pharmaceutical companies for the development and commercialisation of drug candidates.

Early life and education Saldanha was born in Mumbai. He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

Career Saldanha began his career at Eli Lilly and Company in the United States as a brand manager on Prozac, then moved to PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant, advising pharmaceutical clients including Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and SmithKline Beecham. when its annual sales were around ₹70 crore, generated almost entirely in the domestic market.

India amended its patent law in 2005 to recognise product patents rather than only process patents, closing off the practice of manufacturing near-copies of patented drugs. Saldanha has said this change was his reason for investing in original drug discovery rather than continuing to build the company around generics, and Glenmark set up a drug discovery division ahead of the law taking effect, focused on oncology, dermatology and respiratory disease. The company then began out-licensing molecules it developed: partnering with larger companies for late-stage development and commercialisation in developed markets while retaining rights to India and other emerging markets itself. A candidate for type 2 diabetes, GRC 8200, was licensed to Merck, In 2010, Saldanha negotiated the licensing of a chronic pain candidate, GRC 15300, to Sanofi for $25 million upfront. He has said Glenmark earned approximately $230 million in total through out-licensing by 2014.

During his tenure, Glenmark subsequently built a branded specialty portfolio it would commercialise directly in some therapeutic areas, particularly dermatology and respiratory medicine, while continuing to out-license candidates in others. RYALTRIS, a fixed-dose combination nasal spray for allergic rhinitis, received US FDA approval and launched in the United States in 2022; Saldanha has said the product reached 55 countries by the 2026 fiscal year.

In oncology, Glenmark and its subsidiary Ichnos Sciences formed Ichnos Glenmark Innovation (IGI) in January 2024 to bring the group's cancer drug discovery under one entity. In July 2025, IGI signed a global licensing agreement with AbbVie for ISB 2001, a multiple myeloma candidate that targets proteins on both myeloma cells and T cells, built on a Glenmark-developed antibody platform called BEAT. The deal included $700 million upfront and potential milestone payments of up to $1.225 billion, with Glenmark retaining commercialisation rights for India and other emerging markets.

Saldanha was appointed president of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, an industry body representing major Indian pharmaceutical companies in 2017.

Recognition Business Today named Saldanha among India's best CEOs in 2014. In 2015, he received India's Pharma Leader Award, a national award conferred by the Department of Pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India, and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in the life sciences and healthcare category in India in 2017.

Saldanha was ranked 57th on the Forbes India Rich List in 2013 and 69th in the 2017 listing. In 2026, Saldanha and his family were ranked 66th on the 360 ONE Wealth Creators List, with a combined net worth reported at ₹27,792 crore ($2,973 million).