Question

India's largest and first multi-national pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy is being bought over by ____.

• A. Matrix Pharma.
• B. GVK Bio-sciences.
• C. Merck.
• D. None of these.

Hint:

The real buyer was a Japanese pharma company, not any of the first three names given.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Let's work out this general knowledge question by first recalling the background of the company named in the question. Ranbaxy Laboratories was India's biggest pharmaceutical company and the first Indian drug maker to build a true multinational business, with plants and sales spread across many countries.

In the middle of 2008, ownership of Ranbaxy changed. The founding Singh family agreed to sell its controlling stake, and the buyer was Daiichi Sankyo, a large pharmaceutical company based in Japan. This deal made Daiichi Sankyo the majority owner of Ranbaxy, with a stake close to 64 percent, and it was one of the biggest cross border deals in the Indian pharma sector at that time.

Now check the four choices against this fact. Matrix Pharma was an Indian company that was later absorbed by Mylan of the United States, so it has nothing to do with Ranbaxy. GVK Bio-sciences is a research and testing company, not a buyer of pharma firms. Merck is a large multinational pharma company, but records show it did not buy Ranbaxy.

Because the actual buyer, Daiichi Sankyo, is not one of the three companies named in the options, we are left with option 4, None of these, as the only choice that can be correct.

So the answer is option 4, since Ranbaxy was acquired by Daiichi Sankyo, a company not listed among the given choices.