Cipla Limited is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company, headquartered in Mumbai, India. Cipla primarily develops medicines to treat respiratory, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, weight control and depression; other medical conditions.
As of 17 September 2014, its market capitalisation was ₹49,611.58 crore (equivalent to ₹530 billion or US$7.5 billion in 2019), making it India’s 42nd largest publicly traded company by market value.
On 23 April 2019, Cipla appointed Dr. Raju Mistry as Global Chief People Officer.
History
It was founded by Khwaja Abdul Hamied as ‘The Chemical, Industrial & Pharmaceutical Laboratories’ in 1935 in Mumbai. The name of the company was changed to ‘Cipla Limited’ on 20 July 1984. In the year 1985, the US FDA approved the company’s bulk drug manufacturing facilities. Led by the founder’s son Yusuf Hamied, a Cambridge-educated chemist, the company provided generic AIDS and other drugs to treat poor people in the developing world. In 1995, Cipla launched Deferiprone, the world’s first oral iron chelator. In 2001, Cipla offered medicines (antiretrovirals) for HIV treatment at a fractional cost (less than $350 per year per patient).
In 2013 Cipla acquired the South African company Cipla-Medpro, kept it as a subsidiary, and changed its name to Cipla Medpro South Africa Limited. At the time of the acquisition Cipla-Medpro had been a distribution partner for Cipla and was South Africa’s third biggest pharmaceutical company. The company had been founded in 2002 and was known as Enaleni Pharmaceuticals Ltd. In 2005, Enaleni bought all the shares of Cipla-Medpro, which had been a joint venture between Cipla and Medpro Pharmaceuticals, a South African generics company, and in 2008 it changed its name to Cipla-Medpro.
Products and services
Cipla sells active pharmaceutical ingredients to other manufacturers as well as pharmaceutical and personal care products, including Escitalopram (anti-depressant), Lamivudine and Fluticasone propionate. They are the world’s largest manufacturer of antiretroviral drugs
In July 2020, the company announced the introduction of Gilead Sciences’ Remdesivir under the brand name CIPREMI in India after reaching a voluntary licensing agreement with parent company and DCGI approval for “restricted emergency use” in COVID-19 treatment of critical confirmed patients.
Operations
Cipla has 34 manufacturing units in 8 locations across India and a presence in over 80 countries. Exports accounted for 48% ₹4,948 crore (equivalent to ₹68 billion or US$950 million in 2019) of its revenue for FY 2013–14. Cipla spent INR 517 cr. (5.4% of revenue) in FY 2013–14 on R&D activities. The primary focus areas for R&D were development of new formulations, drug-delivery systems and APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients). Cipla also cooperates with other enterprises in areas such as consulting, commissioning, engineering, project appraisal, quality control, know-how transfer, support, and plant supply.
As on 31 March 2013, the company had 22,036 employees (out of which 2,455 were women (7.30%) and 23 were employees with disabilities (0.1%)). During the FY 2013–14, the company incurred ₹1,285 crore (equivalent to ₹17 billion or US$230 million in 2019) on employee benefit expenses.
The equity shares of Cipla are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the BSE SENSEX index, and the National Stock Exchange of India, where it is a constituent of the CNX Nifty. Its Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
As of 30 September 2014, the promoter group, Y. K. Hamied and his family held around 36.80% equity shares in Cipla. Around 148,000 individual shareholders held approx. 18.67% of its shares. LIC is the largest non-promoter shareholder with approx. 6.45% shareholding in the company by the end of September 2013.
| Shareholders (as on 31-March-2014) | Shareholding |
|---|---|
| Promoter Group | 36.80% |
| Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) | 23.32% |
| Individual shareholders | 19.00% |
| Insurance companies | 10.30 |
| Private Corporate Bodies | 04.68% |
| Mutual Funds and UTI | 04.43% |
| NRI/FCB/Others | 03.46% |
| GDRs | 01.10% |
| Total | 100.0% |
Awards and recognitions
- In 2012, Cipla received the Thomson Reuters India Innovation Award.
- Cipla won Dun & Bradstreet American Express Corporate Awards in 2006.
- In 2007, Forbes included Cipla in the 200 ‘Best under a billion’ list of best small Asian companies.
- In 1980, Cipla won Chemexcil Award for Excellence for exports.
- In 2015, Cipla stood third in the India’s Most Reputed Brands (Pharmaceutical) list, in a study conducted by BlueBytes, a leading Media Analytics firm in association with TRA Research, a brand insights organization (both a part of the Comniscient Group).
Criticism
Emergency contraception
In August 2007, Cipla launched an emergency contraception drug “i-pill” sold over the counter, which was controversial with regard to its being available without a prescription and the large amount of drug contained per dose.
Generic drugs
In the late 1960s, Cipla began manufacturing a new, patented drug, propranolol, without the permission of the drug’s patent holder, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), which protested to the Indian government. The CEO of Cipla reached the government of Indira Gandhi to change India’s patent laws to eliminate patents that directly covered drugs, and instead to allow only patents that covered methods to make drugs. so that Cipla could go ahead and produce as many low-priced generic drugs for the poor as possible. Since then Cipla has also produced a low-cost drug to treat HIV and expanded operations into several developing countries, including African nations, where most HIV and poor patients existed at one time. But the changes made led to criticism of both India’s patent laws and Cipla. India reinstated patents on drugs in 2005.