Ajanta Pharma is a public Indian company focused on developing, producing, and marketing pharmaceutical medications. They make well over 1400 different medications, with over a thousand currently awaiting approval.
The Ajanta headquarters is in India, but the company operates in over 30 other countries, including the United States.
This company makes several generic erectile dysfunction medications, including Kamagra, Lovegra, and Tadalis — each offered at a fraction of the cost of their brand-name counterparts.
What ED Medications Does Ajanta Pharmaceuticals Make?
This company manufactures products that cover many different pharmaceutical categories but focus most of their efforts on five key areas — sexual health, ophthalmology, dermatology, cardiology, and pain management.
We’ve covered several of this company’s erectile dysfunction medications so far — which offer customers around the world with a cheap alternative to brand-name drugs like Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra.
1. Kamagra (ED Medication)
Kamagra is Ajanta Pharma’s biggest-selling generic erectile dysfunction medication. The active ingredient in this line of products is identical to Pfizer’s Viagra — called sildenafil citrate.
The Kamagra line includes several different products and doses:
Kamagra Tablets
This is the most basic sildenafil citrate tablet available from Ajanta. It comes in two potencies; 50 and 100 mg.
This is the cheapest generic version of Viagra currently available on the market — costing less tha $1.00 per tablet when you order in bulk.
Kamagra Oral jelly
This pharmaceutical oral jelly is a unique innovation on the standard sildenafil tablets. They come in small packs of flavored gel infused with predetermined doses of sildenafil. Each package comes with 100 mg of active sildenafil in a variety pack of fruity flavors.
The biggest advantage of this product is that by holding it under the tongue for a couple of minutes before swallowing you can shorten the amount of time needed for the drug to take effect.
The active ingredients in the Kamagra oral jelly absorb sublingually (through capillaries underneath the tongue). This shortens the wait time for the drug to take effect by about 20 minutes compared to tablets.
Kamagra Jelly Flavors:
- Pineapple
- Orange
- Strawberry
- Vanilla
- Banana
- Black Currant
- Butterscotch
- Mint
- Rose
- Mango
- Lemon
- Cherry
- Chocolate
- Watermelon
- Guava
- Litchi
- Raspberry
- Green Apple
- Anjeer
- Caramel
- Kiwi
Kamagra Polo
These Polo gummies are another unique innovation only found in the Kamagra line of products. They consist of a fruity Polo gummy ring infused with 100 mg of sildenafil.
Adding pharmaceutical medications to candy products comes with its own set of issues (children mistaking them as candy, accidentally using too much, shorter shelf life, etc.).
With that said, these are much more enjoyable to use than a standard tablet.
Kamagra Gold
Advertised to “give your erection super elasticity.” Ajanta gives no explanation for how these tablets offer “elasticity,” and there are no clear differences in the ingredients or format of Kamagra Gold compared to the regular Kamagra tablets.
Kamagra Soft
Kamagra Soft are small, fruit-flavored soft chew tablets infused with 100 mg sildenafil citrate.
This form of Kamagra, like the gel or polo tablets, has a much faster onset of effects. Chewing the tablets for a few moments before swallowing allows the active ingredients to absorb through the capillaries lining the bottom of the tongue. This shortens the onset of effects by about 20 minutes compared to oral capsules.
Super Kamagra
Super Kamagra contains 100 mg sildenafil combined with 60 mg dapoxetine.
Dapoxetine is a medication used in the treatment of premature ejaculation. It’s a serotonin transporter inhibitory, which delays the time needed during intercourse before ejaculation occurs.
While this combination makes sense in terms of sexual performance enhancement — it has yet to be officially tested in clinical practice. This medication is banned throughout North America, Europe, and most other countries around the world.
2. Lovegra (FSAD Medication)
Lovegra is a generic form of sildenafil in a dose of 100 mg per tablet — which makes it identical in every way to kamagra except the shape, color, and name of the pill.
The difference comes from how the company markets the drug. Lovegra comes in a bright pink tablet and is marketed towards women. The company advertises this product as a treatment for women suffering from a condition called FSAD (female sexual arousal disorder).
FSAD is characterized by an inability for a woman to achieve or maintain enough sexual arousal to sustain sexual intercourse. Lovegra is sold as a solution by increasing sexual arousal in women with the disorder.
The problem is that there’s no evidence to support this effect, and Lovegra has never been approved in the United States or Europe for this application.
3. Tadalis (Medication)
Tadalis is a generic version of another erectile dysfunction medication called Cialis (tadalafil) — which is the second most popular ED medication globally.
Tadalis comes in the same dose as Cialis at 20 mg per tablet.
This medication works the same way as their Kamagra line of products, but has a much longer duration of effects.
Sildenafil (Kamagra) has a duration of up to 6 hours, while tadalafil (Tadalis) can last up to 36 hours (24 hours is more common). This is often referred to as “the weekend pill” for this reason. It’s also slightly cheaper than most other ED medications.
4. Valif (ED Medication)
Valif is the generic version of Levitra — the third-leading ED medication globally, invented by a joint venture between Bayer and Glaxo-Kline Smith.
Each tablet contains 20 mg of the active ingredient, which provides the same intensity of effects and duration as Viagra.
Lawsuits & Legal Challenges Over Erectile Dysfunction Medications
With the high margins and profitability in the pharmaceutical industry, it’s unsurprising to see Ajanta at the center of numerous lawsuits over the years. Here’s a quick highlights reel of the company’s biggest past and present lawsuits.
Lawsuit With Bayer Over Patent Infringement
In 2017, Bayer pharmaceuticals accused Ajanta Pharma of patent infringement on their blockbuster erectile dysfunction medication, vardenafil (Levitra).
Ajanta argued the patents Bayer field weren’t done in the best interest of the Indian people. The high Delhi courts ruled in partial relief to Ajanta, allowing them to manufacture the medication but didn’t permit them to sell it. Mediation was also ordered — resulting in an unspecified agreement between the two companies.
Kamagra banned In the United States
Kamagra is a generic version of sildenafil citrate — which is the same active ingredient in Viagra.
Ajanta was selling Kamagra as a cheap alternative to viagra in the United States until it was banned by the FDA in 2009. Any sources selling Kamagra locally in the United States is done so through unofficial channels.
How Much Is Ajanta Pharma Worth?
Ajanta Pharmaceuticals is trading at $20 USD on the National Stock Exchange of India. This places the market capitalization of the company around $1.7B USD.
While this is no small company, Ajanta Pharmaceuticals is s very small player in the pharmaceutical space as a whole. This makes it difficult for the company to compete in highly competitive markets in the United States, as well as locally in India.
The company has managed to grow its footprint over the past 10 years by focusing on emerging markets in other parts of Asia and Africa. They also focus on making first-to-market generic drugs rather than investing heavily in research and development to bring new drugs to market.
Many of this company’s competitors spend more developing one or two new drugs than Ajanta brings in net revenue every year.
Comparing Ajanta to Major Pharmaceutical Companies
| Pharmaceutical Company | Market Capitalization 2020 | 2019 Revenue | 2019 Profit | Employees |
| Ajanta | $1.7B | $359M | $40M | 7,167 |
| Johnson & Johnson | $385B | $82B | $15B | 132,200 |
| Sinopharm | $60.4B | $70B | $912M | 155,622 |
| Roche Group | $263B | $63B | $13B | 97,735 |
| Bayer | $46B | $52B | $5B | 103,824 |
| Pfizer | $204B | $52B | $4.5B | 88,300 |
| AbbieVie | $178B | $33B | $8B | 30,000 |
| Lupin Pharma | $398B | $1B | $140M | 18,302 |
| Eli Lilly | $140B | $25B | $23B | 33,625 |
Ajanta Focuses on Generic Medications
Ajanata primarily manufactures generic versions of medications — which bring much lower risk to manufacture and cost substantially less to develop than original medications.
Large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Glaxo Kline Smith, and AbbVie spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year developing new drugs, many of which never make it to market.
Once a new drug is approved (backed by phase I, II, and III clinical trials), the drug maker is granted a patent to protect the intellectual property of the medication for 20 years. This protects the company from competition, so they gave a fair chance at recovering the money that went into developing the drug.
Once the patents expire, any company can apply to local regulators to manufacture their own version of the drug. The catch is that the drug must be identical in every way to be considered a generic. No manufacturer can play around with the dose or add new ingredients without going through the costly process of conducting clinical trials to prove it’s still safe to use.
For Ajanta to truly compete in this space they would need to invest about 4 times as much money than they’re currently making in total revenue.
Instead, Ajanta waits for patents to expire on existing brand name medications, and applies for a license to produce generic versions at a cheaper cost. Most of Ajantas products are generic forms of existing medications, offered at around 10% of the original price tag.
History & Founding of Ajanta Pharmaceuticals
Ajanta Pharmaceuticals was formed in 1973 by three brothers — Mannalal, Purushottam, and Madhusudan Agrawal. The company took a while to get off the ground, but by the time the 1990s rolled around, the company was earning several hundred million dollars per year from a new drug called 30-Plus — an energizer capsule for men.
Unfortunately, the marketing costs for this over-the-counter drug were getting out of control, and the company wasn’t making much profit. As profits continued to decline, Ajanta started reporting massive losses for several years.
In 2000, the American-educated sons of one of the founders — Yogesh and Rajesh — took the reins and made big changes to the company to turn things around.
The managing duo changed the company’s direction to focus on specialty generic drug manufacturing instead of OTC drugs and government drug supply. Their philosophy was to attain first to market generic drugs, rather than compete with other Indian and multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla or Sun Pharmaceuticals — two companies that are behemoths in size and influence compared to Ajanta.
Today Ajanta continues to grow despite a relatively low presence in the United States — which is the largest market for pharmaceutical companies by far.
The largest markets for Ajanta include:
- India (30% of business)
- The United States (20% of business)
- Africa (24% of business)
- Asia (excluding India) (26%)
What’s the Future of Ajanta Pharma?
As Ajanta continues to grow year over year, they’re becoming increasingly attractive as a target for acquisition or takeover from other pharmaceutical companies.
This is a notoriously cutthroat industry. Consolidation in this industry is common as large pharmaceutical companies buy smaller competitors.
When asked if the managing duo would consider selling the company, Yogesh and Rajesh both laughed it off, stating that they weren’t interested in selling yet as it was “too early to retire.”
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