Profiles in Innovation: Building Biotech in Bangalore - Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Biodata

Born: 1953

Nationality: Indian

Education: B.Sc. honors degree in Zoology from Bangalore University, India (1973); qualified as a Master Brewer at Ballarat University, Australia (1975); honorary Doctorate of Science from Ballarat University.

Occupation: Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon Limited.

Awards: Economic Times Businesswoman of the Year 2004; Best Employer of India, 2004 Hewitt award; Ernst & Young's 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Life Sciences & Healthcare; 2000 Technology Pioneer Recognition, World Economic Forum; the Padmashri (1989) and Padma Bhushan (2005) presented by the President of India for her pioneering efforts in industrial biotechnology.

Patents: Over 100 Biocon patents.

We started from scratch and built a billion dollar business. How? We had a great team. And we focused on innovation as the key to building value.

The press delights in coining new titles for her: the Biotech Queen from Bangalore, India's First Lady of Biotech, the Mother of Invention. Her company made headlines last year as only the second Indian company ever to cross the US$ 1 billion mark on its first day of listing on the stock exchange. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the dynamic chairman and managing director of the Biocon group in Bangalore, is being hailed as a torch-bearer for the burgeoning biotechnology industry in India.

Catching her at a quiet moment in her non-stop, transcontinental schedule proved easier said than done. But following a trail of e-mails from Bangalore to Paris, WIPO Magazine caught up with her during a London stop-over. She spoke, with characteristic warmth and animation, about her experiences in building Biocon Ltd., and of how intellectual property (IP) helped to spur the growth.

Starting out

As a student, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw had planned to follow in her father's footsteps. He was a master brewer, in itself unusual for a Brahmin family from the state of Gujarat, which prohibits alcohol. But after completing her studies in Australia, she returned to India to find that the industry was not ready to accept its first woman master brewer.

Undeterred, she turned her interest in fermentation science to other ends. The then 25-year old persuaded a small Irish company to form a joint venture, and in 1978 Biocon India was born. Initially working out of her garage, and with only a handful of rupees in the bank, she began making enzymes for industrial application, such as papain, a proteolytic enzyme extracted from the papaya fruit, which prevents chilled beer from turning hazy. Already during these early years Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw was showing her mettle as an innovator with an instinct for finding the gaps in the market. She recalls with pleasure the satisfaction she derived from producing - and patenting - novel products, such as a new enzyme to clarify tea.

Manufacturing enzymes continued to form the core of Biocon's business after its Irish partner was acquired by Unilever in 1989, and it remains a major part of the company's activity. Indeed, a quarter of today's world market in pectinase, an enzyme that breaks...