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At least 30 pharma and healthcare companies bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 5 crore each, adding up to around Rs 900 crore, reveals the electoral bond data released on Thursday. This accounts for about 7.4% of the total Rs 12,155 crore amount for which the data was released.
The top buyers include Yashoda Super-Speciality Hospital (Rs 162 crore), Hyderabad; Dr Reddy’s Laboratory (Rs 80 crore); Ahmedabad-headquartered Torrent Pharmaceuticals (Rs 77.5 crore); Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma (Rs 69.25 crore); and Hyderabad-Hetero Pharma and its subsidiaries. The founder of Biocon Limited Kiran Mazumdar Shaw also purchased bonds worth Rs 6 crore. Other big buyer of the poll bonds from the industry is Cipla (Rs 39.2 crore).
The biggest buyer Yashoda Super-Speciality Hospital purchased 80 bonds in six trenches, the highest being Rs 80 crore in April 2022. At the time of publication, it could not be ascertained whether the buyer was Hyderabad-based hospital or the one based in Ghaziabad as both share the same name. Hetero Pharma purchased the electoral bonds in April 2022, and July and October 2023 after IT raids that allegedly detected Rs 550 crore unaccounted income linked to the firm. Hetero Pharma is known for manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients, along with drugs for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes, among others.
Electoral bonds: by Denomination
Dr Reddy’s Laboratory markets a wide range of generic, branded generics, and biologics. However, they are also one of the big companies manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). Significantly, the government during the pandemic pushed for indigenous manufacturing of APIs, giving financial support to companies who manufacture it through its production-linked incentive scheme.
The sixth highest donor from the healthcare sector, Divi’s Laboratory is one the biggest API manufacturers in the world. Other than that, both Natco and Torrent pharmaceuticals are known for their cardiovascular and diabetes drugs.
Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturers Bharat Biotech (Rs 10 crore) and Biological E (Rs 5 crore), which received government approvals for Covid-19 vaccines, also figure in the list.
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