Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson of Biocon & Biocon Biologics, was featured on the cover of the Rich List edition in 2018. The self-made billionaire feels that transformative new technologies are creating new opportunities for the growth of Indian biotech and pharma companies
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive chairperson, Biocon & Biocon Biologics
Image: Mexy Xavier
Over the last four decades, biotechnology in India has gone from being a nascent sector to a sunrise industry. This ‘Bio Revolution’ has had significant impact on the economy and our lives, from health and agriculture to consumer goods, and energy and materials.
An entrepreneurial culture led Biocon to identify opportunities in biotechnology, which was still in its nascency as an industry in the 70s.
Biocon in its first avatar was an export-driven enzymes company. It forayed into biopharmaceuticals in the late 90s by leveraging capabilities in fermentation technologies derived from its experience in manufacturing enzymes. The transformation was aligned to the global imperative of driving greater health equity through a diversified and differentiated portfolio of biopharmaceuticals.
Biocon then evolved into a company making fermentation-based small molecule generics, followed by a metamorphosis into a biopharmaceuticals group with businesses spanning bulk drugs and finished formulations at our generics vertical, novel biologics and biosimilars at Biocon Biologics, and research services at Syngene.
Biocon is again undergoing a transformation that will take us closer to patients and steer us into new growth paths. The acquisition of Viatris’s biosimilars business by our subsidiary Biocon Biologics is creating a fully, vertically integrated biosimilars company with a direct commercial presence in advanced and emerging markets.
(This story appears in the 16 June, 2023 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)