In 1977, a pharmacist named Hasmukh Chudgar started a small pharmaceutical company in Ahmedabad. Nearly five decades later, that company has become one of India’s largest privately held pharmaceutical enterprises, generating approximately $2.5 billion in annual revenue across 85 countries. Through its international subsidiary Accord Healthcare, Intas has built a global generics operation spanning 22 manufacturing plants in India, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Mexico, all while remaining firmly under family control.
Hasmukh Chudgar graduated from Gujarat University with a pharmacy degree and founded Intas Pharmaceuticals in 1977. Unlike many Indian pharmaceutical entrepreneurs who came from trading or chemical-manufacturing families, Chudgar was a practising pharmacist who understood drug formulation from the bench. That technical grounding shaped a company culture that prioritised manufacturing competence and product quality over marketing flair.
What followed over nearly five decades was a methodical expansion from a single facility in Gujarat to a multinational operation generating approximately INR 21,200 crore (roughly $2.5 billion) in annual revenue, growing at a compound annual rate of around 7%. The Chudgar family retains 83.85% ownership, with Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek holding 10.13% and private equity firm ChrysCapital owning 6.02%. Forbes has ranked Hasmukh Chudgar as the third-richest pharmaceutical billionaire, with a net worth of approximately $7.6 billion, a measure of how much value can be created by a pharmacist who chose to build rather than sell.
Intas remains one of the few Indian pharmaceutical companies of its scale that has never listed on a stock exchange. That decision has allowed the Chudgar family to reinvest aggressively in manufacturing capacity, international expansion, and new therapeutic areas without the quarterly earnings pressure that shapes the behaviour of publicly traded competitors.
Intas’s international ambitions are channelled primarily through Accord Healthcare, the subsidiary that serves as its global-facing arm. Accord operates across regulated markets in Europe, North America, and Australasia, supplying generic pharmaceuticals, biosimilars, and specialty products to hospitals, pharmacies, and healthcare systems worldwide. The subsidiary has its own commercial teams, regulatory infrastructure, and supply chains, functioning as a standalone generics business in many of the markets it serves.
In 2018, Accord made a notable move by reopening Sanofi’s former manufacturing plant in Fawdon, Newcastle, in the United Kingdom. The French pharmaceutical company had closed the facility, but Accord saw an opportunity to repurpose it for its European supply chain. The decision signalled that Intas was not simply exporting finished products from India; it was willing to invest in local manufacturing capacity in developed markets, a strategy that reduces supply-chain risk and strengthens relationships with national healthcare systems that increasingly value domestic production capability.
Through Accord, Intas has built a presence in more than 85 countries, creating one of the widest international footprints among privately held Indian pharmaceutical companies.
Intas operates 22 manufacturing plants spread across India, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. This geographic diversification of production is deliberate. Having manufacturing capacity in multiple countries and regulatory jurisdictions reduces supply-chain concentration risk, provides proximity to key end markets, and satisfies the increasingly common requirement from healthcare systems that suppliers maintain local or regional production capabilities.
The Indian facilities form the backbone of the operation, supplying both the domestic market and export channels. The European and North American plants, including the Fawdon facility in the UK, primarily serve Western regulated markets where proximity to the end customer and compliance with local good manufacturing practice standards carry commercial weight.
Across these 22 facilities, Intas manufactures a broad range of dosage forms and therapeutic categories, supporting the approximately 20,000 employees who work across the company’s research, manufacturing, and commercial functions globally.
Intas is investing in several areas that signal where it sees the next phase of growth. Biosimilars represent a significant opportunity as biologic drugs lose patent protection and healthcare systems seek more affordable alternatives. The company has been building capabilities in biosimilar development and manufacturing, leveraging its existing regulatory and commercial infrastructure across 85 countries to bring these complex products to market.
Beyond biosimilars, Intas is expanding into cell and gene therapy, an area that represents the frontier of pharmaceutical manufacturing and requires entirely different production technologies than traditional small-molecule generics. The company is also developing capabilities in plasma fractionation, which involves processing human blood plasma into therapeutic proteins used to treat rare and chronic conditions. These investments suggest a company that is thinking beyond the generics business that built its first $2.5 billion, positioning for a future where pharmaceutical manufacturing becomes more complex, more regulated, and more capital-intensive.
Sources: Intas Pharmaceuticals company disclosures. Accord Healthcare corporate information. Forbes billionaire rankings. US FDA warning letter database. Industry reports on Indian pharmaceutical sector.