Aurobindo Pharma expands India drug business with ₹325-cr deal

Aurobindo Pharma, via its wholly owned arm Auro Pharma, has acquired Khandelwal Labs’ non-oncology prescription formulations business for ₹325 crore. 

Simply put, the company wants regular prescription medicines that are not used to treat cancer.

The acquisition gives Aurobindo a push in pain management and anti-infective therapies. These are two high-volume, sticky segments in India’s pharma market.

Why Khandelwal Labs: the buyout brings 23 brands across 67 SKUs, plus nine pipeline products, all aligned with Aurobindo’s existing portfolio. 

It also includes inventory, IP, employees, contracts, and a ready-made distribution network, meaning faster scale, not slow build-out.

Zoom out: in India, the non-oncology prescription formulations market is estimated at ₹1.6–1.8 lakh crore annually, accounting for over 85–90% of the domestic pharma market. Within this, anti-infectives and pain management alone contribute ~25–30%, driven by high-volume, repeat prescriptions.

By contrast, oncology drugs make up just 8–10% of domestic pharma sales, despite being high-value per patient.