How Laborate Pharmaceuticals grew from a family enterprise to a global pharma company

Four decades ago, brothers Ajay and Sanjay Bhatia founded Laborate Pharmaceuticals with a simple mission: to make essential medicines affordable for common people in the country.

“When my father and uncle founded Laborate in 1985, their goal was straightforward: make dependable medicines affordable for ordinary Indian families. Building our own manufacturing units early helped us control quality, costs, and supply reliability from the start,” says Parag Bhatia, Ajay’s son and Laborate’s current Director, who joined the company in 2015.

The company made a mark in high-demand categories such as antibiotics, pain management, respiratory care, and paediatrics with medicines like Ceflox, Clonac Plus, and C-Zin. Affordable, reliable, and widely available, these products reflected Laborate’s core philosophy from the beginning.

From regional beginnings to a national presence

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the Panipat, Haryana-based family business grew steadily and became a nationwide player. This growth was driven by strengthening logistics, building trust with pharmacists, and establishing distribution networks that reached Tier II and Tier III towns, areas where affordability mattered the most.

Laborate also began moving from a north-centric distribution model to a pan-India network, a shift driven not by big announcements but by operational groundwork. The company expanded state-level partnerships, strengthened logistics capabilities, and earned trust among pharmacists.

“The shift from regional to pan-India distribution was a turning point,” Parag says. “It forced us to think beyond familiarity and operate at a scale where processes matter as much as products.”

During this time, the company also launched its institutional and export verticals and began investing in WHO-GMP-compliant facilities in Haryana and Uttarakhand. These units eventually became the backbone for its expansion into regulated and semi-regulated markets.

A global vision

The company’s transformation into a global exporter and multi-vertical healthcare manufacturer accelerated after Parag Bhatia joined in 2015, following his postgraduate studies in International Management in the UK.

“When I joined, the company was already respected in regional markets, but the systems were still very traditional. My first priority was to bring structure—data-backed planning, transparent processes, and a long-term global view,” says Parag.

Over the next decade, Laborate’s annual revenue grew from around ₹300 crore to more than ₹1,600 crore, and the company expanded its footprint to other countries.

“As we expanded to over 55 countries, scale allowed us to keep unit costs low without compromising on standards. That blend of access, scale, and quality has shaped Laborate’s journey from a small family-run outfit to a global pharmaceutical manufacturer,” says Parag.

Today, Laborate maintains a portfolio of over 3,000 formulations, ranging from generics and nutraceuticals to herbal wellness and personal care, but the company maintains that volume was never the primary goal.

“We have strong internal quality systems, professional leadership across divisions, and teams that combine legacy experience with new-age thinking,” Parag says. “That balance keeps us grounded.”

Broadening the healthcare portfolio

Parag’s early years at Laborate were spent building the cosmetics and wellness division, a segment he felt had huge untapped potential. From there, he went on to expand the company’s nutraceuticals, herbal formulations, and eventually private-label manufacturing for partners in India and abroad.

This diversification positioned Laborate from a generic-drug manufacturer to what Parag describes as an “integrated healthcare solutions partner,” handling R&D, formulation, packaging, manufacturing, and exports under one roof.

Parag also spearheaded the company’s push for advanced global certifications, including EU-GMP compliance, which opened the door to markets like the EU, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. “If we want international partners to take us seriously, global compliance is the baseline,” he says. “It’s not something you do for a certificate; it changes how your teams think, operate, and measure quality.”

Direct to retail innovation

One of the company’s defining moves came in 2022 with the launch of Aqualab, Laborate’s direct-to-retail (D2R) vertical. The idea, he says, emerged from observing a shift in how pharmacists interacted with customers.

“Pharmacists were becoming the first point of guidance for everyday diagnostic and wellness needs,” Parag explains. “We realised that if we truly wanted to improve accessibility and reliability, we had to simplify the last mile.”

Aqualab began with a focused but essential product line, but soon evolved into a strategic arm that connected Laborate more directly with retail counters.

“Looking back, the move into D2R has been one of the most defining steps for us,” Parag says. “It allowed us to bring trusted formulations straight to pharmacists and consumers without multiple layers in between. It deepened our understanding of what people actually ask for, not just what distributors stock.”

For the company, the D2R push is less about bypassing the traditional channels and more about tightening feedback loops—on price, demand, usage patterns, and consumer behaviour. It also signals a shift in the broader pharmaceutical market, where retailers are increasingly shaping purchase decisions in wellness and diagnostics.

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Building trust beyond tradition

Despite its family origins, Laborate’s evolution has been driven by professionalised leadership across its verticals.

“We are still a family business in spirit, but not in structure,” Parag says. “Professional teams run manufacturing, quality, exports, regulatory affairs, and domestic operations. My role is to align them towards long-term credibility, not quarter-to-quarter targets.”

He emphasises that the company’s growth, especially in exports, has come from patience rather than aggressive scaling. “Each market has its own learning curve. You cannot force timelines. Whether it’s Africa, Southeast Asia, or the CIS region, the focus has been on building trust, not just selling cartons.”

Speaking about challenges, Parag adds, “In the early days, the biggest hurdle was balancing quality with affordability while building our own facilities, it required patience and conviction. As the industry evolved, stricter regulatory expectations pushed us to upgrade systems and testing, which was demanding but ultimately strengthened us.”

“Reaching smaller towns was another learning curve; earning the trust of distributors and doctors in unfamiliar regions took time and shaped our long-term approach to access. And as we entered international markets, we had to adapt to new standards and ways of working. Each phase brought its own challenges, but also valuable lessons.”

The road ahead

Over the next few years, Laborate aims to expand its presence to over 100 international markets while further scaling its domestic D2R network through Aqualab. The company also expects the wellness and cosmeceutical categories—currently smaller than generics—to grow substantially over the next five years.

Parag’s long-term goal is to strengthen the company’s manufacturing ecosystem with deeper R&D capabilities and more advanced compliance frameworks. But he remains measured in his outlook.

“Healthcare is not a sprint,” he says. “It’s a responsibility. Our job is to build systems that last longer than any single market trend.”