Mumbai-based Solar, led by billionaire founder Dilip Shanghvi, 70, has accomplished detailed due diligence that lasted over three months and is now finalising a financing bundle earlier than submission of a agency supply within the coming weeks. Not less than three world banks have been mandated final week to again the bid, which would be the largest world M&A involving an Indian pharma main if it goes forward.
ET BureauET on January 19 was first to report that India’s greatest drugmaker was evaluating Organon, a debt-ridden US firm specialising in ladies’s well being that was spun off from MSD (Merck Sharp & Dohme) in 2021. Solar was in negotiations with JPMorgan, MUFG and Commonplace Chartered Financial institution for financing, ET reported.
In January, Solar had made a non-binding supply earlier than initiating due diligence.
Modern Analysis
Citi can be going to affix the financing consortium to again the all-cash supply, stated the folks cited. JP Morgan is Solar’s monetary advisor and AZB is authorized advisor.
Nonetheless, Solar’s not the one contender. Two different world consortiums, one involving a buyout fund and one other a mix of a strategic investor and a European buyout fund, are additionally competing for the corporate. Organon is working with advisor Morgan Stanley to search out patrons for a part of its enterprise or your entire operation.
In current months, Solar Pharma chairman Shanghvi has harassed the necessity for Indian drugmakers to maneuver into modern analysis for the subsequent section of development and contemplate acquisitions to construct scale, whereas maintaining their generics lead intact.
Shares of Organon have fallen 19.06% within the yr to this point following a quick spurt in January after information of Solar’s bid turned public. Its market cap in Thursday morning commerce within the US was $1.52 billion. Solar Pharma closed Thursday with a market valuation of Rs 4.12 lakh crore ($44.30 billion).
Organon has been on Solar’s radar for some time now however a critical analysis started final November finish when the US firm determined to promote its JADA post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) therapy system to Laborie Medical for as much as $465 million because it sought to pivot from ladies’s well being gadgets to resume its concentrate on the ladies’s well being biopharma vary.
“It’s been cold and hot even after January resulting from heightened world volatility. However within the final 10 days, Solar has but once more upped its tempo,” stated an government conscious of the negotiations. “It’s an enormous guess and it solely is sensible in case you are enjoying to win at such a complicated stage.”
Solar Pharma and Organon didn’t reply to queries.
Legacy woes
Organon inherited $9.5 billion of debt through the MSD spinoff and has been dealing with intense aggressive stress from world drugmakers as nicely generic suppliers in all three of its broad enterprise segments–ladies’s well being, biosimilars and the established merchandise vary, which incorporates cardiovascular medicine, respiratory and non-opioid ache, bone well being and dermatology medicine.
The newest information present Organon decreased debt to $8 billion in calendar 2025. As compared, Solar has about $3.2 billion (Rs 26,000 crore) of web money on its stability sheet. The administration has stated it’s prepared to utilise this to fund massive acquisitions. In FY26, Solar Pharma clocked gross sales of Rs 52,000 crore—the US and India contributed nearly an equal share of 31-33%. The remaining is split between different markets and lively pharmaceutical substances (APIs).
Final yr, Solar acquired Checkpoint Therapeutics for $355 million upfront and the deal worth reaching $416 million. This gave Solar Pharma entry to Unloxcyt, an anti-cancer drug. Gross sales from 11 of its modern medicine grossed $1.21 billion within the US. These embody ophthalmology, hair loss, dermatology and anti-cancer medicine. Solar Pharma’s largest modern drug within the US is Ilumya, for the therapy of plaque psoriasis, which noticed gross sales of $681 million final yr.
Strategic Rationale
Organon’s flagship model Nexplanon, an etonogestrel implant, posted a 4% drop in 2025 gross sales to $921 million, totally on account of decreased authorities funding within the US. Moreover, the impression of an investigation that alleged improper gross sales practices by the corporate additionally hit gross sales. Organon nevertheless expects to achieve traction within the Latin American markets within the subsequent few years.
In January, the US Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental Nexplanon that extends using the implant to 5 years from the sooner three years, brightening prospects for gross sales and staying in competition within the long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) market, which is dominated by Bayer, AbbVie, Pfizer and Ferring.
“It is a significant milestone for Organon and the Nexplanon model because it probably broadens the addressable marketplace for this key product,” interim chief government officer Joseph Morrissey instructed traders at Organon’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings name in February.
Within the biosimilars phase, Organon is prone to face further competitors because the US FDA in its draft tips just lately restricted the requirement of comparative efficacy research for biosimilars. Which will see smaller firms bidding for a similar market as Organon on key medicine that deal with breast cancers and auto-immune ailments. Organon instructed traders it is going to depend on selecting the correct companions for development throughout the US whereas tapping different geographies.
In gross sales of established medicine, Organon is steadily recovering from the lack of exclusivity of its hit ldl cholesterol drug Atozet. Nonetheless, established medicine or the legacy product portfolio comprise the largest chunk of Organon’s income, totalling $3.69 billion in 2025. The generic trade is fiercely aggressive and will damage Organon if value efficiencies are usually not maintained. Indian drugmakers akin to Dr Reddy’s, Solar Pharma, Zydus and Cipla are recognized to be the dominant forces within the US generics market.
