India’s Largest Biopharmaceutical Company Headed by India’s Richest Self-made Woman
Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw is someone who made it big in the pharmaceutical industry, which is dominated by enormous and powerful companies. She is the Managing Director and Chairman of Biocon. The company which was initially headed from a garage (just like various other famous startups, such as Microsoft, Google and Apple) has grown to become one of India’s leading pharmaceutical industry manufacturer and a leader in research and development.
Kiran Mazumdar was born in Pune to Rasendra Mazumdar, who was the head brew master at the United Breweries. She followed her father’s footsteps and took training to be a brew master. This was a very unconventional path for women at that time and Kiran was the only female student in her class, but she still managed to top the class. This was a clear sign of how driven she was since a young age. She then started her journey as a brew master which was not very easy, as brewing was considered as a man’s job. The story of Biocon began when Mrs. Shaw met Leslie Auchincloss in Ireland, who offered her to start a subsidiary of Biocon in India. Mazumdar took the offer and started Biocon India in a garage in Bengaluru with a seed capital of Rs. 10,000 in 1978 with a 70% stake in the firm. Initially she faced a lot of creditability problems because of her young age, gender and unique model. She also had to fight many a battles just to get loans from the bank and recruit employees because of such a model. But despite the challenges Mazumdar worked relentlessly and without losing any hope. As a result of which they were able to export enzymes to USA, and European countries within the first year of Biocon’s establishment.
The company began with the extraction enzymes such as that of papain used for tenderizing meat and isinglass for clarifying beer but with the spearheading of research and development by Mazumdar, Biocon began evolving into a fully integrated bio pharmaceutical company adding a variety products and focusing of research on diseases such as diabetes and oncology. With the rapid expansion of the company throughout, two subsidiaries were eventually established: Syngene (1994) and Clingene (2000). Syngene provides early R&D services on contract basis and Clingene focuses on R&D of generic and new medicines. In 1998, Mazumdar’s fiancé Scotsman John Shaw acquired the minority shares of Biocon from ICI and established an independent reign. In 2004, Biocon took the big leap and went public after seeking advice from Narayan Murthy. Its shares were subscribed 33 times and it came out to be the only second company to touch the $1 billion mark on the first day of listing.
Affordable innovation has been the cornerstone of the development and expansion for Biocon as a company. They recognized the opportunity of manufacturing affordable drugs for the not so wealthy nations at cheap prices using cost effective techniques and alternatives. This helped these countries in combating a variety of diseases at a minimum cost and Biocon was also rewarded for its endeavors. The company’s revenue shot up from Rs 78 crore in 1998 to Rs. 550 crores in 2004. Biocon has not looked back ever since, and is now engaged in R&D of medicines and vaccines for a number of diseases such as cancer, diabetes and autoimmune diseases. It expends nearly 10% of its revenue on R&D, which is higher than most of its competitors.
On a personal note, it’d be phenomenal for India if more companies learn from Biocon’s model and actually try to build something new rather than just copying others and playing it safe. More focus should definitely be put on R&D and only then can more such unique and innovative companies be formed. On a last note, Mazumdar can be a great role model for each one of us and should be definitely considered a true superstar of the feminist movement, as she is someone who fought against gender stereotypes since the beginning but instead of complaining she made her own path.
ARTICLE BY: ANUBHAV CHAURASIA
Literacy Source: https://www.wikipedia.org/
https://www.biocon.com/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/
Image source: https://www.aninews.in/
https://www.slideshare.net/
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets
