Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: The Woman Behind the Biotech Revolution

Mon Nov 18 2024

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: The Woman Behind the Biotech Revolution

INTRODUCTION: THE MIND BEHIND THE BIGGEST INDIAN BIOTECH COMPANY:
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the woman who revolutionised the Biotech industry in India is the founder of Biocon India, the country’s leading Biotech company. The company under Mazumdar’s guidance and hardwork has been recognised internationally for its cutting edge work in healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

She has been recognised on various platforms as one of the 100 Power Women in 2023 from the Forbes list, top 100 most influential people from TIMES magazine, receiving a Padma Shri award in 1989 and a Padma Bhushan award in 2005 for her innovative efforts in the industry of Biotechnology.

She’s a woman of many tricks and trades whose goal is to make healthcare affordable in the country.

EARLY LIFE: SEEDS OF THE FUTURE ENTREPRENEUR SOWN:

Kiran Mazumdar was born on March 23rd, 1953 in Bangalore Karnataka. She did her schooling in Bishop Cotton Girls’ High School and Mount Carmel PU College (1968 and 1970 respectively) and graduated Bachelors with a degree in Zoology at Bangalore University in 1973. Like almost anyone presently studying Biotechnology or pursuing a degree in the biological sciences, Mazumdar dreamt of going to Medical school but couldn't obtain a scholarship to support her dream.

Mazumdar’s father was a Head Brewmaster at United Breweries, the reason why Kiran earned her degree in brewing in Melbourne University in 1975, topping her class in a field dominated by men at the time.

She couldn't find an opportunity to work as a master brewer in India as it was a “Man’s Job” began looking for prospects in Scotland. In Scotland, she met Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Chemicals, Ireland which dealt with enzymes used in brewing, food packaging and textiles.

Auchincloss wanted a partner to start a subsidiary in India and supply him with Papain (an enzyme from papaya fruit used to tenderise meat) and offered partnership to Mazumdar who agreed under the condition that if she did not wish to continue after 6 months she'd be given a position of brewmaster.

BIOCON: SUBSIDIARY TO AN INDEPENDENT ENTERPRISE:

Mazumdar-Shaw’s journey with Biocon started in 1978 with just Rs 10,000 in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore. She faced a lot of challenges being a young woman in a male dominant industry with no experience as an entrepreneur. Despite the struggles, she got funding through a banker she met by chance. Employing people at the time was difficult to say the least, her first employee was a retired garage mechanic. They worked with very limited resources, the most advanced tech in their lab being a spectrophotometer.

The company’s first product was Papain and Isinglass (enzyme from tropical catfish) making Biocon the first company in India to export enzymes to US and Europe, setting a stage for the company to become a Global Enterprise.

As the company grew, focus shifted into Biopharmaceuticals, pioneering research in Diabetes, Oncology (cancer studies) and Autoimmune diseases (prominent health issues in India).

Mazumdar also launched two key subsidiaries: Syngene: research service provider, started in 1994 listed on the stock exchange list in 2015, presently boasts a market value of Rs 23,000 crores; Clinigene: focused clinical research, started in 2000.

In 1987, Biocon’s first major expansion came with a $250,000 venture capital fund from ICICI Ventures, enabling them to set up a new plant with cutting-edge fermentation technology. By 1990, Biocon formed a joint venture with the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology to develop lifesaving biotherapeutics.

In the next few years, they navigated a series of acquisitions and partnerships, finally gaining independence in the late 1990s when Mazumdar and her husband, John Shaw, bought out Unilever’s stake in the company.

In 2004, Kiran made the decision to take Biocon public, raising crucial capital for further research and development. The IPO was a booming success, oversubscribed 33 times, and Biocon became the second Indian company to cross the $1-billion mark on its first day of trading. This set in stone that Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is one of the most influential Indian entrepreneurs.

AFFORDABILITY AND COMPASSIONATE CAPITALIST: LIFE’S LEGACY:

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw always believed in affordable innovation and made sure the same philosophy was the heart of the company throughout its growth.

She made a breakthrough by spotting the potential of Statins- cholesterol lowering drugs. As soon as the patent for lovastatin expired in 2001, Biocon took the opportunity to develop its own statins which made more than half of the company’s revenue jumping from Rs 70 crore in 1998 to Rs 500 crore in 2004 when the company went public.

Biocon has also had huge successes in biopharmaceuticals, producing the world’s only Pichia-based recombinant human insulin and insulin analogs for diabetes, as well as biologics for cancer and psoriasis. As Asia’s largest insulin producer, Biocon is also home to the largest perfusion-based antibody production facilities.

The company invests about 10% of its revenue into research and development, much more than most Indian pharmaceutical companies. With over 950 patents filed, Biocon is now a leader in the field of Biotechnology.

In 2004, Mazumdar-Shaw started a corporate social responsibility wing at Biocon, the Biocon Foundation. The Foundation focuses on health, education and infrastructure, especially in rural areas of Karnataka which lack healthcare facilities.

Mazumdar-Shaw dislikes the term "philanthropy" because he believes that it only provides temporary fixes rather than addressing the root cause or providing a permanent solution. She prefers the term "compassionate capitalist", believing that properly applied business models can provide an ongoing foundation for sustainable social progress.

In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthropy

The death of her best friend, Nilima Rovshen, and the illnesses of her husband and her mother with cancer, have motivated Mazumdar-Shaw to support cancer research and treatment. In 2009, she established a 1,400-bed cancer care centre, the Mazumdar-Shaw Medical Foundation, at the Narayana Health City campus in Bangalore, collaborating with Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya. In 2011, she added a centre for advanced therapeutics with a bone marrow transplant unit and a research centre.

Mazumdar-Shaw has supported the development of Arogya Raksha Yojana (Health Protection Program/Health Help) with Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital. Through this program Biocon Foundation establishes clinics to offer clinical care, generic medicines and basic tests for those who cannot afford them.

The clinics organise regular general health checks in remote villages by bringing in physicians and doctors from network hospitals. Public health campaigns such as "Queen of Heart" educate people about specific health issues and promote early detection of problems such as cardiovascular diseases.

Biocon provides the clinics low-cost drugs, making a negligible profit on a unit basis, but an overall profit on volume due to the participation of large numbers of people. Clinics also use a "subsidised convenience" pricing plan, under which more wealthy patrons pay full price in return for the convenience of scheduling their visits and procedures at desirable times, while poorer patients can obtain cheap or even free services by choosing less desirable times.

AN INSPIRATION TO WOMEN AND BIOTECHNOLOGISTS:

As an engineering student of Biotechnology, female and a part of my college’s E-Cell, reading about how Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw started her entrepreneurial journey from wanting to become a master brewer to the founder and chairperson of the biggest Indian Biotech company, Biocon is such an inspiring story.

She had started off with an idea of what to do and only Rs 10,000 in a garage. She knew the struggles and challenges she’d face in a male dominated industry but never let that discourage her from reaching her goal as an entrepreneur back then and even now.

Her philosophy of making healthcare affordable to the people resonates so much with me as I myself want to become an entrepreneur in the same industry carrying that very philosophy as healthcare isn't cheap especially for women.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw started as a young woman with passions and dreams with only a shed to work inside but now is a billionaire at 71, wanting to make world class cancer research centres, affordable medications, research on diabetes and autoimmune diseases and so much more. She is a woman with ambition and will not let anyone dim that even after her very last breath. She opened the gates in India for many female entrepreneurs to shine and be a part of that vast community and is influencing one person, girl or not, to work hard towards their goals and achieve their dreams and stand tall. She’s changed the biotech industry completely, making other companies also take notes from Biocon as an example.

-By Mariam Shuaib
Corporate Relations Executive E-CELL