Pankaj Patel

Pankaj Ramanbhai Patel (born 16 March 1953) is an Indian billionaire businessman, and the chairman of Zydus Lifesciences, the fifth largest pharmaceutical company in India.

In October 2024, Patel was ranked 24th on the Forbes list of India's 100 richest tycoons, with a net worth of $10.2 billion.

In January 2025, he was conferred the Padma Bhushan, the country's third highest civilian award for his contribution in the field of Trade and Industry.

Early life Pankaj Patel is a Gujarati. He was the leader of the Rashtriya Vidhyarthi Parishad and active leader of the Navmiraman Movement. Since he was eight years old, he would go to the factory with his father and would watch employees working on tablets machines.

Zydus journey Patel, in 1976 after graduation, joined the firm Cadila Healthcare, which was founded by his father in 1952 to make vitamins.

In 1995, Cadila Laboratories and Cadila Healthcare split under Zydus Group. Zydus's word is taken from the Greek god, Zeus. The letter D was added to Zeus, and it became Zydus. He took charge in 1995 after a formal separation between the two founding families from Zydus Cadila to Zydus Lifesciences and Cadila Healthcare. When he took over the Cadila Healthcare, he was faced with two challenges: His was a Rs. 200-crore company whereas his overheads including management, research, company expenses, and staff worked out to Rs. 400 crore. It was difficult to make two ends meet. They also make a tablet named Aten (Atenolol) which is used as a medication to control blood pressure.

The Sugar-Free brand created by Zydus Wellness has proved to be ubiquitous sugar substitute In the animal healthcare segment, it ranks second in India. From a turnover of Rs. 250 crore in 1995 to Rs. 1,000 crore in 2000, the Group posted revenues of over Rs. 6300 crore in FY2013. It has its manufacturing and research facilities in five states across India and is globally present in markets such as the US, Europe (France and Spain), Latin America, South Africa and 25 other emerging markets. They formed an alliance with German biotech firm Pieris Pharmaceuticals for developing and marketing a new class of protein therapeutics. Zydus was the first to file to sell a generic version of Shire PLC's $1.1 billion ulcer drug, Lialda, in the U.S. and the FDA had awarded it six months of exclusivity.

He is also the chairman of Zydus Hospitals, a large chain of hospitals in Gujarat.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Patel ramped up production to become one of the largest suppliers of hydroxychloroquine and also came out with a variant of in-demand drug Remdesivir. It was also in the process to develop vaccine to fight COVID called as Zycov-D.

Leadership positions In 2016–2017, he became the president of FICCI. It is India's oldest, largest, non-government, not-for-profit, and apex business organization.

He was a board member for eight years prior to becoming the chairman of the Board of governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

He also officiates on the board of several not-for-profit and charitable institutions. He also officiates as the Chairman of the Deaf and Mute School, Ahmedabad. He is also a Director and chairman on the Board of Zydus Foundation which set up Zydus Hospital and Medical College, Dahod.

Patel has been appointed as the Part Time Non-official Director in Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India for a period of four years. He is a member of several other organisations including Invest India, Mission Steering Group (MSG), the highest policy-making and steering body constituted under the National Health Mission (NHM), and Drug Technical Advisory Board by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. He is also a Member of the Governing Board of India Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. He is also a Member of the CEO Advisory Committee of International Generics and Biosimilars Association (IGBA).

He has published over 100 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and is a co-inventor in more than 64 patents. He has been conferred with Dsc. (Honoris Causa) by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow.

The World Pharmaceutical Frontiers ranked him in their First Pharma 40 list of ‘world's most influential people in the field of healthcare.

Personal life He is married to Priti Patel, a daughter of Dr. B D Patel. They have two children. and is married to Meha. Their daughter Shivani is married to Pranav D Patel, son of Dushyant D Patel. He is fond of traveling and would go out for outing every vacation especially near rivers or mountains. He is also interested in theatre.

Patel is a well-known philanthropist in India. He believes that philanthropic work is more than just donating in monetary terms. It is also about non-monetary aspects like giving your time, ideas, volunteering, etc. Pankaj does not like to share his donations, and hence most of them are undisclosed.