This Indian scientist-turned drugmaker doubled his wealth to $6 billion during coronavirus pandemic

The 69-year-old owner of Divi Laboratories, Murali Divi, is a US-trained scientist who returned to India after he got the opportunity to get on board as a partner in Dr Reddy’s Lab back in 1984. But six years later, he parted ways to start his own company Divi Labs in 1990.

However, it was not until 2013 that Murali Divi entered India’s billionaire club. He was worth $1.3 billion as of March 2013. Since 2013, Divi’s wealth has increased nearly five times. He’s worth $6.5 billion as of September this year, according to Forbes.

According to Forbes, he ranks 538 on the world’s richest people list. His story is one of learning from circumstances, resilience and building on his vision.

Murali Divi is from Machilipatnam, a small town in Andhra Pradesh — located about 350 kilometres away from Hyderabad. His father was a retired government officer who would receive ₹10,000 ($136) a month as pension. His father had to manage the expenses, keeping in mind all his 13 children, including Divi.

It was serendipity that led to Divi choosing the pharmaceuticals path that eventually led to building Divi’s Labs. According to Forbes, Murali Divi would have followed his elder brothers’ footsteps and ended up as a chemist, had he not filled the form for an American visa at the right time in 1976.

For Divi, it was destiny that led him to the US. “Within a month or two I got a green card because there was a shortage of pharmacists in the US at that time. I was told to collect it at immigration. I went to the US with $7, that was all the foreign exchange one could get to travel abroad at that time,” he told Forbes in 2019.

He then worked hard — to earn a salary of $65,000 a year — at a range of top organisations in the US, including Trinity Chemical and Fike Chemical across Texas, New Jersey, and West Virginia. But along the way, he got homesick, and soon returned to his motherland.

Divi landed in Hyderabad with his wife, children, and $40,000 without any plans for the future. He started working at Warner Hindustan in Hyderabad. It was there that his paths crossed with Kallam Anji Reddy.

Reddy had worked with Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd and was also the founder of newly formed Dr Reddy’s Labs. Murali Divi helped Reddy build his newest takeover Cheminor to new heights, but left the organisation six years later for reasons that are not known.

Today, he’s five times richer than Satish Reddy, who just became a billionaire in 2020. Satish Reddy is the son of late K. Anji Reddy and runs Dr Reddy’s lab with G.V Prasad.

^{Murali Divi getting an award from the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee}

Thirty years into the pharmaceutical industry, Murali Divi emerged as the highest-paid pharma executive in India. He was paid a sum of ₹588 million ($8 million approx) in 2018-19. According to Economic Times, Divi’s Lab offered the namesake CEO a 46.3% hike in remuneration as compared to the previous year.

Divi has increased his wealth to $6.8 billion, according to Forbes. Interestingly, he has earned half his wealth — nearly $3 billion — during the coronavirus pandemic.

His Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical laboratory witnessed robust growth after PM Narendra Modi launched Atma-Nirbhar Abhiyan that promoted made-in-India products. Moreover, India’s anti-China sentiments because of the border tensions have worked in his favour too.

However, it is not just the conducive market environment that made Divi richer. He had been consistently growing over the last few years. In the last three years, the share price of Divi's Laboratories has surged over 400%. Several brokerage firms, including Emkay Global Financial Services, are bullish on the future prospects of this company and have a 'Buy' call.