Gupta was born on 30 November 1938 in Rajgarh, Alwar, Rajasthan, and received a master’s degree in chemistry from Bombay University. He was eldest of the five siblings.

He founded Lupin in 1968 with a start-up capital of ₹ 5000 borrowing the money from his wife. The first office of Lupin was rented premises in Central Mumbai used for dispatching medicines. Later, with a loan of ₹ 8 lakh from Central Bank of India, he started a factory whose major order was to provide iron and folic acid tablets to the Government of India programmes related to mother and child healthcare. Under his leadership, Lupin became a global pharmaceutical company by entering markets across the globe including US and Japan.

Gupta set up the Lupin Human Welfare & Research Foundation (LHWRF) in October 1988. LHWRF was set up with the objective of creating a reproducible and evolving model for sustainable rural development with a simple goal of uplifting families living below the poverty line in rural India. This vision of rural development focuses on holistic development programs that systematically create opportunities and infrastructure, while empowering people in rural areas, to bring about a socio-economic change and ensure the inclusion of rural communities in the nation’s economic progress. Nationally, the Lupin Foundation impacts the lives of 2.8 million people living in about 3,500 villages spread across 9 states – Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Jammu, Andhra Pradesh, and Sikkim.

Gupta was the recipient of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 in the healthcare sector and the Frost & Sullivan – Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. In April 2018, he was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame at the CNBC TV18 India Business Leader Awards 2018.

In 2015, Forbes estimated Gupta’s net worth at $7.2 billion, making him the 254th richest person in the world.