KIRAN MAZUMDAR – SHAW: THE INDIAN BIOTECHNOLOGY MILLIONAIRE

Kiram Mazumdar – Shaw was born on 23 March, 1953 and is an Indian entrepreneur. She is the chairman and managing director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore, India and is also the current chairperson of IIM-Bangalore.

She attended the Bishop Cotton Girl’s High School in Bangalore and Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, a women’s college offering pre – university courses as an affiliate of Bangalore University. She studied biology and zoology in 1973. She hoped to go to medical school, but she could not obtain a scholarship.

Her father, who was the head brew master at United Breweries, suggested she studied fermentation science and train to be a brew master, which was a non – traditional field for a woman. She then attended Belarat College of Advanced Education, in Australia, to study Malting and Brewing. In 1974, she was the only woman enrolled in the brewing course and she graduated top of her class. She earned the degree of Master Brewer in 1975. However, when she investigated the possibility of working in Bangalore or Delhi in India and she was told that she would not be hired as a master brewer India because it was a man’s job.

She was offered a position in Scotland and before she could move to that country, she met Leslie Auchincloss, who was the founder of Biocon Biochemicals Limited, Cork, Scotland. The company produced enzymes for use in the brewing, food packaging and textiles industries. Leslie Auchincloss, was looking for an Indian entrepreneur to help establish an Indian subsidiary. Kiran Mazumdar – Shaw agreed to undertake the job on the condition that if she did not wish to continue after six months, she would be guaranteed a brew master’s position comparable to the one she was giving up.

After a brief period as a Trainee Manager at Biocon Biochemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland, to learn more about the business, Kiran Mazumdar returned to India. She started Biocon India in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of Rs. 10,000 ($160.67 USD). Although it was a joint venture, Indian laws restricted foreign ownership to 30% of the company. The remaining 70% belonged to Kiran Mazumdar.

Initially, she faced credibility challenges because of her youth, gender and her untested business model. Funding was a problem because no bank wanted to lend to her, and some requested that her father be a guarantor. A chance meeting with a banker at a social event finally enabled her to get her first financial backing. She also found it difficult to recruit people to work for her start-up. Her first employee was a retired garage mechanic. Her first factory was in a nearby 3,000 square foot shed. The most complicated piece of equipment in her lab at that time was a spectrophotometer.

She also faced the technological challenges associated with trying to build a biotech business in a country with a shaky infrastructure. Uninterrupted power, superior quality water, sterile labs, imported research equipment, and workers with advanced scientific skills were not easily available in India at the time.

The company’s initial projects were the extraction of papain (an enzyme from papaya used to tenderize meat) and isinglass(obtained from tropical catfish and used to clarify beer). Within a year of its inception, Biocon India was able to manufacture enzymes and to export them to the United States and Europe, the first Indian company to do so. At the end of her first year, Kiran Mazumdar used her earnings to buy a 20-acre property, dreaming of future expansion.

Mazumdar – Shaw spearheaded Biocon’s evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated bio – pharmaceutical company with a well balanced business portfolio of products and a research focus on diabetes, oncology and auto – immune diseases. She also established two subsidiaries, Syngene, a company that provides early research and development support services on a contract basis and Clinigene, a company that focuses on a chemical research trials and the development of both generic and new medicines.

She was also responsible for establishing Biocon’s direction. The company’s first expansion came in 1987 and 1989, it became the first Indian biotech company to receive US funding for proprietary technologies. In 1990, she incorporated Biocon Bio – pharmaceauticals Private Limited (BBLP) to manufacture and market a select range of biotherapeutics in a joint venture with the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology.

Unilever acquired Biocon Biochemicals of Ireland from Leslie Auchicloss in 1989. This partnership with Unilever, helped Biocon to establish global best practices and quality systems, in 1997, Unilever sold its specialty chemicals division, including Biocon to Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). IN 1998, Kiran Mazumdar – Shaw’s husband, John Shaw, personally raised $2 million USD to purchase the outstanding Biocon shares from ICI.

Biocon was listed on the stock market in 2004, to raise capital to further develop Biocon’s research programs. It was the first biotechnology company in India to issue an IPO. Biocon’s IPO was oversubscribed 33 times and it’s first day of listing closed with a market value of $1.11billion USD, making it only the second Indian company to cross the $1 billion mark on the first day of listing.

In 2014, Kiran Mazumdar – Shaw was awarded the Othmer Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. She is on the Financial Times’ top 50 women in business list. Also in 2014, she was listed as the 92nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine.