Divi's Labs MD's payout tops ₹100 cr on commissions, leads industry peers

Divi's Laboratories MD Murali K Divi topped India's pharma executive pay chart in FY26 with ₹100.26 crore, driven almost entirely by profit-linked commission

Murali K Divi, managing director (MD) of active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturer Divi’s Laboratories, emerged as the highest-paid executive among India’s largest listed pharmaceutical companies in FY26, drawing total remuneration of ₹100.26 crore — more than double the pay of the next highest-compensated executive, Cipla’s former MD and Global chief executive officer (CEO) Umang Vohra, who took home ₹45.73 crore, shows an analysis of the annual report disclosures for financial year 2025-26 (FY26) from nine of India’s largest listed drugmakers. 

The analysis of disclosures from Biocon, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Divi’s Laboratories, Lupin, Mankind Pharma, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Zydus Lifesciences shows that executive pay at the very top is not fixed and is increasingly driven by profit-linked commissions, deferred stock incentives and, in some cases, complex cross-border payment structures. This makes year-on-year (Y-o-Y) comparison of executive pay packages more difficult. 

Divi’s Labs stands out among peers owing to the size and composition of its MD’s compensation package.

 

Of the ₹100.2 crore paid to Divi in FY26, only ₹0.36 crore came from perquisites and allowances with the remaining ₹99.9 crore paid as commission calculated as a percentage of the company’s net profits under Section 197 of the Companies Act, 2013. There was effectively no fixed salary component. 

This shows that Divi’s pay moves in near-lockstep with the company’s bottom line. The commission paid was up 13.7 per cent Y-o-Y, tracking growth in net profit rather than any fresh compensation contract or board-approved hike. It is a formula, not a negotiation, and the same pattern is reflected across the compensation paid to Divi’s leadership team. 

The company’s other whole-time directors, comprising several Divi family members, each saw remuneration rise by a strikingly similar 13.2-13.3 per cent. Divi’s Labs Executive Director (ED) N V Ramana earned ₹51.20 crore, Whole-time Director and CEO Kiran S Divi earned ₹34.84 crore, and Whole-time Director (Commercial) Nilima Prasad Divi earned ₹34.78 crore. The near-uniform increase in payout for all four EDs points to a formulaic, profit-linked commission pool rather than individually benchmarked pay packages. 

After Divi’s, Cipla’s Vohra comes second with a pay package of ₹45.73 crore, up 122.7 per cent Y-o-Y, though the company says pay excluding a one-time ₹25 crore long-term incentive and retiral benefits actually fell 25 per cent as he left the company. Zydus Lifesciences Managing Director Sharvil Patel stood third with a payout of ₹45 crore, up 25 per cent Y-o-Y and Torrent Pharmaceuticals Executive Chairman Samir Mehta came in at the fourth spot with a payout of ₹36 crore, up 20 per cent during the period under consideration. Mehta’s compensation was almost entirely commission-based. Lupin CEO Vinita Gupta, at the fifth spot in terms of executive pay, drew a package of 26.69 crore, and was one of the few executives on the list to see her pay decline by 1.6 per cent. 

Torrent’s top executive pay closely mirrors the Divi’s model. Of the ₹36 crore paid, almost the entire amount was commission-based, with just ₹0.40 lakh paid in salary and perquisites. In contrast, Zydus’ Patel received a package split between ₹30 crore fixed pay and ₹15 crore in variable pay. 

Sun Pharma, India’s largest listed pharmaceutical company by revenue and market capitalisation, disclosed the lowest top executive pay among the nine companies reviewed. Whole-time Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Aalok Shanghvi earned ₹ 9.3 crore in FY26, while Executive Chairman and founder Dilip Shanghvi earned even less, at ₹ 7.06 crore, indicating that the senior Shanghvi was paid less than his son. 

This is not so much a case of governance restraint as a function of ownership structure. The Shanghvi family holds a large promoter stake in Sun Pharma and derives the bulk of its economic returns through dividends and stock appreciation rather than executive salaries — a common pattern among India’s founder-promoter led companies. Sun Pharma also witnessed a leadership transition mid-year, with Kirti Ganorkar being appointed MD effective September 1, 2025. His disclosed ₹5.87 crore reflects roughly seven months of pay. 

Across the nine companies, a clear structural divide emerges. At Divi’s, Torrent and Zydus, executive pay is dominated by profit-linked commissions that scale directly with net profit rather than market-benchmarked salaries, producing the sector’s most extreme pay ratios. At DRL, Sun Pharma, Lupin, Mankind and Biocon, compensation is split more evenly between fixed salary, annual bonuses and, increasingly, deferred long-term incentives or Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) components that vest over several years. 

Biocon stands out as the exception on stock options. 

Promoter-executives — Vinita Gupta and Nilesh Gupta at Lupin, the Shanghvi family at Sun Pharma, the Patels at Zydus, and the Junejas at Mankind — are barred from ESOP schemes under Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) Share Based Employee Benefits Regulations as they are promoters. 

Non-promoter professional executives are the ones actually realising stock-linked value. Biocon’s outgoing MD and CEO, Siddharth Mittal, realised a ₹9.30 crore perquisite from exercising previously granted stock options, disclosed separately from his ₹12.98 crore cash remuneration — up 76 per cent following a revised five-year term approved in December 2024. Biocon also saw a leadership change at the very end of the fiscal year, with Mittal moving to another role within the group and Biocon Biologics CEO Shreehas Tambe stepping in as MD and CEO from April 1, 2026. 

Cross-border payment structures are also complicating like-for-like comparisons. Lupin's Gupta is paid entirely through US subsidiary Lupin Management Inc, placing her remuneration outside the direct reach of Indian managerial pay caps under the Companies Act, despite being voluntarily disclosed. 

Cipla’s Vohra was paid partly through Cipla USA Inc. DRL follows an unusual split structure, with Cochairman and MD G V Prasad’s ₹15.8 crore disclosed under the standard Section 197 table, while CEO Erez Israeli — a key managerial personnel but not a board director — receives a separate package comprising roughly ₹7.3 crore in fixed pay, up to ₹7.3 crore in target variable pay, and ₹15.3 crore in long-term incentives vesting over three years. This is not captured in the same disclosure format. 

Mankind Pharma’s statutory remuneration table records a null rather than a stated percentage for the Y-o-Y pay change of all three top executives — Vice Chairman and MD Rajeev Juneja at ₹19.5 crore, Executive Chairman Ramesh Juneja at ₹16.1 crore, and CEO Sheetal Arora at ₹8.3 crore — even as independent directors’ pay changes are disclosed in percentage terms in the same table. All three are related: the Juneja brothers run the company alongside their nephew, Arora, underlining Mankind’s status as a closely held, founder-family controlled enterprise despite its public listing. 

The top 5

• Murali Divi earned ₹100.26 cr, highest top executive pay in the pharma sector
• 99.9% of this came from profit-linked commissions
• Umang Vohra (ex-Cipla MD & CEO) ranked second at ₹45.73 cr
• Sharvil Patel (Zydus Lifesciences, ₹45 cr), Samir Mehta (Torrent Pharma, ₹36 cr) and Vinita Gupta (Lupin, ₹26.69 cr) complete the top five