Ranbaxy stays alive with products like Volini and Revital

Even seven years after the entity ceased to exist on paper, Ranbaxy Laboratories’ story isn’t over yet. A company that died majorly due to USFDA concerns, its domestic portfolio continues to rule in India with some brands still being household names, and contributing to Sun Pharmaceuticals’ business.

Around 34% of the moving annual turnover of Sun Pharmaceutical comes from Ranbaxy products, data up to May 2021 from the All-India Origin Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) suggests. This has been steady since 2017.

While Ranbaxy’s contribution has come down from 37% in 2016, it continues to be up from 32% in 2015 just after Sun took over Ranbaxy.

The moving annual turnover of Ranbaxy in May 2021 is Rs 4,570.3 crore. It has witnessed a steady increase over the years from Rs 3492.7 crore in May 2017, says Sheetal Sapale, President Marketing - AIOCD AWACS.

AICOD AWACS’ moving annual turnover in April 2021 shows that Ranbaxy is 11th in the list of top 50 pharma companies.

This is despite that Sun Pharmaceuticals, when it acquired Ranbaxy in 2015, went on to look at what each and every product and therapy is worth.

“Ranbaxy was a much bigger company and they were good at building brands like Revital. Sun Pharma benefitted greatly with this as Ranbaxy was one of the best brand makers,” says Anup Soans, a pharma veteran. “It is like Coca Cola took over Thums Up but could never erase the brand completely.”

Many therapies like anti-infectives, nutrients and pain killers have been steadily growing. Some brands which have been household names, like Volini and Revital are running the show from the Ranbaxy portfolio.

Volini leads the pack with a moving annual turnover of Rs 334.9 crore in May 2021 comprising major part of the pain killer and analgesic segment which has a moving annual turnover of Rs 577.9 crore. Volini and Revital are both products of Ranbaxy that Sun is now marketing as its flagship brand.

In the process of integrating the two entities, Sun Pharma began rationalising Ranbaxy’s portfolio.

For instance, it sold two units of the central nervous system portfolio inherited from Ranbaxy to Strides Acrolab. The moving annual turnover of this portfolio was over Rs 92 crore. Now the CNS portfolio’s moving annual turnover in May 2021 is only Rs 2 crore.

On the corporate side, out of the 40 Ranbaxy subsidiaries Sun inherited, five have been dissolved or liquidated. The company, in an e-mail statement, said that many of the subsidiaries that were liquidated were non-operational.

Many others that exist have undergone rebranding where the Ranbaxy brand name has been done away with in the integration process. What analysts note about the integration process is that there was a difference in work culture.

“The execution did not go as planned. There were challenges in terms of corporate culture. Sun was too optimistic about the execution. Such transactions require proper management skills which were not seen. There was also a difference in the work culture at Ranbaxy versus Sun,” notes Amit Khurana from Daulat Capital.

One of the major issues with the merger was dealing with employees, especially medical representatives of Ranbaxy.