BIOCON, India is a skylight to the inspiring story of a woman who built an invaluable organization and created enormous value and wealth from naught. The company’s dramatic evolution from the tiny bubble that it once was, to the limitless ocean of genes and enzymes that it has become today, is known to many.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Chairman and Managing Director, BIOCON, India) is a classic example of a lone ambitious young woman who began pursuing an entrepreneurial career in a society and era, where women merely took up jobs or stayed at home.

When a peeved Kiran found that her gender did not permit her to make a dent in the brewing industry in spite of her high qualifications, she established BIOCON at the age of twenty-five in 1978, promising herself that she would become a poster girl for Indian women entrepreneurs, one day. She wove a team of likeminded people who had the vision to excel and take the company to global environs. When she built BIOCON, she had no money, business qualification, experience, political clout or contacts with industrial and business houses.

The company was set up in a rented garage on a shoestring budget of Rs.10,000. With BIOCON, she succeeded in dispelling the prevailing myth that biotechnology was a poor cousin of Information Technology. Today, her has transformed her enterprise into a global patents-driven kingdom where a multitude of novel, proprietary products and advanced systems of technologies are being granted PCT and US patents. For Kiran, the initial public offer (IPO) marks a high point in a 26-year journey, which transformed BIOCON from a small enzyme-maker into a drug firm, even challenging global insulin makers like Eli Lily and Novo Nordisk.

We attempted to count the number of awards, which Kiran Mazumdar Shaw had won for her advancements and innovations. Alas, we failed to keep pace. Kiran secured the highest civilian honor of Padmashri, as early as 1989. Apart from awards conferred by The Economic Times and Financial Express, she won several mentions from Forbes.

In 2004, ET conferred the ‘Businesswoman of the Year Award’ on her and declared BIOCON as ‘The Emerging Enterprise.’ In the Johny Walker Business Case Studies survey conducted by Corporate Dossier (The Times of India) in December 2004, Kiran emerged as one of the top ten most powerful CEOs in India.

The Guidepost

Kiran prides on her supportive, close-knit family, consisting of her parents and two elder brothers. The daughter of a master-brewer at a leading beer-making company United Breweries, Kiran proudly says that her father can almost be referred to as the inventor of the Kingfisher beer. A man who was unconventional in his thinking and encouraging in his measures, Kiran’s father was the driving force behind every movement of hers.

“Dad always told me I should pursue a career,” Kiran reveals in a deferential tone. She gazes wistfully through her office window at the robust almond tree, under which her fathers’ ashes lie today. “If Dad were alive, he could have seen me the way I am today,” she whispers serenely. As though remembering, her eyes abruptly brighten as she proclaims, “From that tree, Dad watches me, every moment of my life.”

A silent catalyst for BIOCON’s stupendous success, Kiran’s mother was a constant source of strength and guidance. Mrs. Mazumdar proved to be a good anchor for her daughter especially after the tragic demise of her husband.

It normally so happens that children draw inspiration from their mothers but in Kiran’s case, it was entirely the opposite. With the undying support and encouragement she derived from her daughter, Mrs. Mazumdar invested in two businesses – the Mazumdar Farm and Jeeves, a dry cleaning and laundry service agency, both of which have blossomed into successful enterprises today.

The Mazumdar Farm produces a large range of vegetables, which are typically difficult to cultivate. Carving a niche for herself in the ambit of organic vegetables, Mrs. Mazumdar raised a business, which entails supplying her produce to five-star hotels and expatriate communities in Bangalore. Kiran recalls that it all began when the representatives of a catering institute, ‘The Christ College’ approached Mrs. Mazumdar one day and asked her to teach them to grow asparagus.

Jeeves specializes in rendering dry-cleaning and laundry services for airlines like Lufthansa and Jet Airways, giant companies like Infosys and BIOCON and all the hotels in the city. “At BIOCON, all of us give our laundry to her,” Kiran confesses.

With this venture, Mrs. Mazumdar obtained so phenomenal a success that she is now purchasing an industrial shed. “She’s doing a really great job,” Kiran reflects proudly. “I believe I have inherited my business-acumen genes from her.”

Igniting the Spark

As a child, Kiran’s aptitude for colour and insatiable thirst for adventure heightened her yearning to explore the intricacies of life and people. During most of her spare time, she would experiment with colours and paint with even, nimble strokes.

At school, Kiran was very studious, categorically committing herself to every endeavour she took on. She loved teachers who voiced radical views, taught different concepts and generated new ideas.

Kiran always had good English teachers. She evokes in her memory the love she received from Anne Warrior, one of her English teachers at school. “She sowed in me, the seeds of unconventionality,” Kiran recounts with heartfelt reverence. “She would dole out interesting projects to her students, eliciting creativity and imagination from each of us. She encouraged us to think innovatively.”

The mysteries and colours of the sciences had always mesmerized Kiran. Genetics and molecular biology began to captivate her during her undergraduate career at college. “I drew a lot of inspiration from my science professors who made an excellent faculty there,” she beams.

Kiran’s larger-than-life carriage won her the loyalty of numerous friends in college. When Kiran didn’t get a seat in medicine, which she had earlier aspired and tried for, she shoved her disappointment aside and unperturbedly equipped herself with a BSc degree in Zoology in which she stood first in the university. She then traveled to Australia to pursue her post-graduate studies in Brewing and Fermentation Sciences from Monash University.

She was the only female student in her batch and the youngest in her class. “At twenty-one, I was also the most inexperienced as I had barely received exposure to the industrial and corporate environments,” she admits ruefully. “In contrast, all my colleagues in Australia were not only either in their late twenties or early thirties but had acquired solid work experience too.”

The all-round girls’ college, which Kiran had graduated from, gave her few opportunities to interact with men. In Australia, she gradually learned to equate with men. Her steadfastness won her the admiration of her male colleagues most of whom established sturdy friendships with her and sat with her to work out several papers, helping her quicken her progress on the learning curve. Unsurprisingly, Kiran topped the class.

A Test of Time

The 80-acre BIOCON premises, which stands majestically amidst the most elite of electronic hotspot centres on Hosur Road today, constituted a remote, jungle area, twenty-one years ago, when the company had no telephone.

Kiran manufactured simple enzymes, which she extracted from sources as diverse as raw papaya and tropical fish. The firm initially supplied simple enzymes to an Irish company, BIOCON. In due course, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilevers bought over BIOCON India’s Irish partner. As a partner of Unilevers’ empire, Kiran observed that global giants outsourced research extensively, which BIOCON could leverage. Thus began her journey.

Kiran traveled extensively from the apex of Kashmir to the base of Kanyakumari to build her business. During those times, trains and buses were her best allies; she couldn’t afford the lavish comforts of flying. “The train was my most preferred mode of transport even when I took trips to Delhi,” Kiran grins.

She had an age and gender credibility to source too. In Kiran’s times, you had to be over forty to head a company in India and be taken seriously.

Kiran had no credible investment bankers to back her; they perceived her as a gullible young child. Her gender did not help her either.

“It was extremely difficult to find people who were willing to work for me too,” Kiran recollects. She finally succeeded in impressing her investors with her intellect and ‘I will succeed’ attitude.

Acquiring her first bank loan was only the tip of the frosty iceberg. Raising money to build her factory and adopt new R&D technologies was a Herculean task, especially in light of the fact that R&D was an up-and-coming county for the industries and was hence virtually unheard of.

Furthermore, R&D outcomes were so uncertain that applying normal investment criteria was rather difficult. Undaunted by the lukewarm response, which her ideas evoked, Kiran launched Syngene, a contract research company in 1994. She gathered sufficiently large volumes of venture capital with the intention of honing India’s outsourcing skills and enhancing her potential for contract research. BIOCON’s initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed a record 33 times in presence of the oil-refining giant ONGC.

As the Indian biotech sector grew exponentially, the industry was flooded with a surge of new biotech entrants, which began to embrace Kiran’s self-coined concept of ‘research process outsourcing’.

Kiran believed in generating employment to the poor and unskilled labour force. When she began BIOCON, she hired fifty unskilled workers, vowing to herself that she would permit no differentiation between the labour force and the management. It didn’t work. Education – or the lack of it – became a big divide.

A problem arose in 1986-87 when the laborers decided to form a union. All though momentarily startled by their announcement, Kiran calmly attempted to reason with them.

“How can you address the management on a one-to-one level if you organize a union?” she queried. The frustrated workers saw no logic in Kiran’s argument.

“What are your problems? Please discuss them with me,” Kiran requested.

“We are perfectly fine. We have no problems,” the workers assured. “We are happy with the work ambience. Nevertheless, we would like to belong to a union.”

Kiran couldn’t understand their motive. “Why should you belong to a union, then?” she mused, baffled.

The workers didn’t take her question in the right spirit. The wide gaps in the communication bred a lot of ill will and animosity. Workers would squat on the floors, brandish pickets and effigies and call her all kinds of names.

Kiran began to find their attitude an encumbrance to the company. She took a bold decision. Jettisoning the workers, she shut down the company’s operation. After many weeks, an automated BIOCON was established.

With this move, she incurred the wrath of the workers. Back then, she lived alone. In the middle of the night and wee hours of the morning, would she receive phone calls from the union leader, who said that she would be done for, if she didn’t give in soon. The union even threatened to fling acid on her.

“As a man, you cannot make such threats,” Kiran retorted. “If you want to fight me, fight me on a different level.” Refusing to buckle down from the sheer exhaustion of it all, she gathered her wits to sustain herself.

On another occasion, one of Kiran’s R&D colleagues reminded her that he wanted to purchase a computer for the company. As Kiran had to meet several other financial requirements, she couldn’t afford a computer that cost Rs.30,000. She told him as much.

“If you desperately need a computer, find the money for it.” she added, unequivocally. And find the money, he did. He took a loan from his grandfather. The company acquired the computer and repaid the loan.

Kiran and her colleagues had the slenderest pay packets in comparison with the industry standards. “My first salary hovered around Rs.50. The salary of the President of the R&D department was not more than Rs.1200 when he joined the company. We took the same salary ever since,” she reports. Another ingenious young man joined BIOCON India as the marketing manager for a monthly pay of Rs.2500. When the Head of Operations came along in 1990, he obtained Rs.4500. The deplorable plight they faced then is a far cry from the whopping turnover of around Rs.5000 million, which BIOCON has achieved today.

Kiran’s expression is one of tranquility as she looks back at the company she built patiently. “We were able to build the company only because the team accepted the low-salary scenario back then and held on patiently,” she acknowledges with satisfaction.

Into the Fray

With a view to launch anti-cancer drugs, BIOCON plans to build Asia’s largest anti-body facility in concert with CIMAB, a renowned Cuban research institute, which has received recognition for its meticulous research in antibodies and immuno-therapies, particularly in the field of oncology. The first product, which is an anti-EGFR (Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor), targets antibody h-R3 and is due to undergo clinical trials in Bangalore.

“We expect to launch the product into the Indian market by the end of 2005,” Kiran informs with an upbeat smile. “This will be followed by two more antibodies, anti-CD3, (an immuno-suppressant for transplants) and anti-CD6, (which would work against rheumatoid arthritis and T-Cell lynphoma).” In the offing are also three cancer vaccines: EGF, TGF-alpha and Her1.

BIOCON has discovered a plethora of medium-term opportunities in the area of insulin production. The company has also launched the world’s first recombinant human insulin (r-DNA) ‘Insugen,’ with the objective of capturing a share of 20% over a span of the next two years in the fast growing Rs.2.2 billion (USD 48.74 million) human insulin market. Besides manufacturing enzymes and drugs to fight diabetes, cancer and cholesterol, BIOCON has separate units, which offer contract research and clinical trial services for global clients in a bid to cash in on relatively inexpensive scientists. BIOCON aims to grow at the rate of 30% per year – a percentage, which carries the potential to make it a billion dollar company by the end of the decade.

BIOCON intends to make a foray into the US market and is waiting for the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to spell out its regulatory policy on the generic version of insulin. Kiran has already submitted a drug master file to the USFDA, becoming the first Indian insulin producers to do so. “The US and European markets are our long-term targets in view of regulatory barriers,” Kiran discloses.

BIOCON, India has also become a major global player in statin technology. “Statins however, provide us only a short-term opportunity,” Kiran informs clearly. “We believe we can discover long-term opportunities in antibodies and proprietary molecules.”

Statins, Insulins, antibodies and immuno-suppressants are now major areas of focus for BIOCON.

An Ocean of Wealth

Sporting a fancy scarf, a trendy haircut and a friendly smile, Kiran hardly looks like a scientist who heads a 1,200-strong team of technical experts and a company, with more than 130 patents to its credit.

If she is the richest woman in the country today, she always attached a strong value for money. Every product or service, which BIOCON was charged for, was handpicked.

“Even today, we negotiate the price when I purchase machinery and equipment for BIOCON,” Kiran professes. She never spent money on extravagant purposes. Wherever she went, she bought the cheapest train tickets and made sure she stayed in the cheapest of hotels. It is no wonder that she hasn’t been able to attune herself to ’The Richest Woman of India’ title.

“The word ‘rich’ gives a connotation that money has not been obtained in the kind of way I would like it to be perceived. Richness can be inborn, inherited or usurped. The tag name ‘rich’ should throw light on the scuffles we have fought against, to climb to this position. The BIOCON story is all about wealth creation. Anyone who is committed enough to the cause of creating wealth can achieve it.”

The words ‘ennui’ and ‘status quo’ do not exist in Kiran’s dictionary. She believes she can influence change at different levels, particularly by encouraging women to think differently about themselves. She has been active in motivating women to speak up for themselves and retaliate when they are treated subserviently or accused for ‘not doing things right.’ Kiran set up BIOCON Foundation, as an exclusive CSR-body, which would focus on bringing about a social change in the areas of health care and education.

“Being powerful doesn’t mean throwing your weight around and ordering people,” she rightly says. “To achieve power, one should possess the ability to elicit social change.”

The Vision Beyond

BIOCON aims at standing as one of the top ten corporate biotech conglomerates, worldwide. Kiran fervently hopes to see a BIOCON molecule in the world market in the next five years, placing India in the coveted league of rare and vibrant biotech forerunners. “India is one of the biggest centres for biotechnology in the areas of health care and pharmaceuticals,” she asserts.

Her vision was ratified when the Karnataka government founded a biotechnology Vision group, with Kiran as its Chairman. Kiran advises the government on the policy initiatives that it should introduce in the field of biotechnology.

Kiran has also been selected as the honorary Consul of Ireland for pharma-biotech ventures between India and Ireland. The $350 billion pharmaceutical industry revolves around merely 400 drug targets, which are known to wreck human health.

The functional genomics should explode the universe to an ambit of 10,000 targets or more. In short, trillions of dollars of business have been set to explode globally – a potential, which had Bill Gates (Microsoft) subscribing to it too. Kiran has identified such an opportunity and skillfully developed it to place India in the global map of biotechnology.

“A position as one of the top ten G-7 or G-10 countries in the world is what India should aim for,” Kiran states with passion.

v In the same League

Kiran’s expertise in the realm of biotechnology has won her a high opinion from the best of corporate heads. The phone buzzes amidst our pleasant chat with her. Kiran’s eyebrows shoot up with amusement as she picks up the receiver. The caller is none other than Azim Premji (Chairman of Wipro). She laughs, listens for a while and then laughs some more before rendering her expert advice. Azim Premji has immense respect for Kiran’s interests and appreciates her phenomenal success in the biotech industry. In fact we caught him seeking advice from Kiran for his new biotech venture.

Over the years, Kiran established a full-bodied friendship with Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy (Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies) and Dr. Devi Shetty (Chairman, Narayana Hrudalaya). While Azim Premji developed a terrific brand image for India in the métier of software services, Narayana Murthy gave shape to his model company, Infosys, creating it from zilch – just like Kiran did for BIOCON. They never fail to joke with one other.

“Few people know the lighter, funnier side of Azim. So, don’t be fooled by him.” Kiran warns us with an impish grin. “Many believe that Azim is a very serious person who hardly knows what humour is. But that is what he does all the time as soon as he picks up his phone to talk to me.” Once again, the lavishly adorned office fills up with her gregarious laughter as we hit the record button and resume our conversation.

“Dr. Devi Shetty is one of the greatest inspirational forces in my life today,” Kiran unveils. “To me, he represents every facet of the modern Gandhi. His mind constantly teems with unique ideas for new measures, which he can introduce to induce social change.” Kiran is proud of the fact that Dr. Devi Shetty ensured that the poorest of men would be able to avail of the best of health care services.

The Receptive Employer

Trust in every employee and the full freedom that each member of the staff has at his disposal to work to his fullest potential, are some of the best features of BIOCON.

“The question of gender never arises with Kiran. Such is her personality,” the employees state in happy unison. Kiran candidly expresses her standpoint on workplace gender concerns:

“Being a thoughtful manager has nothing to do with being a man or woman. You have to be very fair and just. People shouldn’t perceive you as a bigoted, self-opinionated soul who favours certain kinds and classes of people.

What’s more, you have to be approachable and communicate clearly to your folks. Perhaps, the only difference I discern between a man and a woman is the historical belief that men belong to the more powerful sex. Women are substantially more aware of the sensitivities of people than a man is.

If one of my employees requested me to listen to a personal problem, I might at the least be able to understand an iota of the turmoil they are going through. But men don’t have the time for that. In all likelihood, employees (and female employees in particular) would not openly discuss their problems with a male CEO simply because they would not be quite so comfortable doing so. A woman whose husband physically abuses her at home would feel more at ease when she talks about her horrid instances to the woman in me.”

Life’s Symmetry

Kiran married John Shaw at the age of forty-five. A tall Scotsman, John was forty-nine and the Managing Director of Madura Coats, when he met Kiran. Her family appreciated the certitude with which she married John. “My family declared that they would be happy as long as I was happy with the man of my dreams,” Kiran says.

John left Madura Coats to join BIOCON and work in concert with Kiran. He felt that his financial finesse and Kiran’s scientific acumen would provide a good complementary fit for BIOCON. John never had a complex that he wasn’t quite so high-profile a personality as his wife. “There has been no insecurity in our relationship,” Kiran divulges, her husky voice tinged with pride.

Kiran hasn’t given much thought to raising a family of her own; she and her husband spend most of their time at work. “Women lay claim to excellent multi-tasking skills,” she adds. “They can establish stability between their personal and professional lives with more ease than men, if they desire to do so.” Kiran spends a lot of quality time with her mother. When her brothers’ families visit Bangalore, she leaves her office early to play with her niece and nephew. “But I tend to work late when they’re not here,” she admits sheepishly. She mentions that sister-in-law Catherine, a French professor at a university abroad and a mother of two teenaged children has achieved a strong equilibrium between her home life and work life. Catherine’s husband (Kiran’s brother) heartily cooks dinner for the family when his wife is compelled to work late.

“Men are required to understand their wives’ needs and constraints,” Kiran declares staunchly. “Women would find it difficult to strike a good balance if their husbands tell them that household work is their job.”

With Kiran’s husband shouldering an equal burden of domestic responsibilities, she shares a happy and successful marital life with him.

All though a firm believer of God, Kiran doesn’t remember being a devout Hindu; she never thought one religion was better than the other. Religious nuts (and religion in particular has always been a hard nut to crack.) just aren’t Kiran’s cup of tea.

Reposing immense faith in the fruits of tradition, Kiran performs those religious activities, which hold the importance and charm of Indian culture and tradition.

“For instance, I don’t associate ‘Bhoomi Puja’ with the austerity of a Hindu custom,” Kiran substantiates, “Instead, I perceive it as an integral component of India’s rich, composite culture and tradition.”

“The essence of the Gita is very profound,” she reveals, her face caked with a philosophical expression. The principles of Buddhism and various facets of the Bible enchant her too.

Inside that impervious exterior, lie a compassionate soul and an altruistic heart.

“When I asked Kiran ma’am to give me just one month to decide whether I would take up the job of serving as her driver, I was touched to hear her say that she would wait for one year to hire me,” avows Edward, who has been Kiran’s chauffeur for eighteen years.

Kiran’s nobility has led her to believe that the energies of the youths should be harnessed and their talents, encouraged if the intellectual resource pool in our country is to expand further. When a group of students approached Kiran for her support in their new shaadi.com venture, she heartily agreed.

Jest like Kiran

Kiran’s childhood penchant for art paved way for her zest for artifacts of varied styles and antiquities, which she personally hunts for. Her best art collections are displayed in her office and her Spanish-style villa in Glenmore. “The first piece of artworks that I bought were priced nominally compared to the whopping rates, which people are charged with for similar works, today,” she recalls. She paid Yusuf Arakkal Rs.3000 in three installments for the first work of art she bought.

Her involvement with art is confined to merely buying exquisite art pieces, today. She also loves sauntering over to hosts of art exhibitions and updating her knowledge on the latest trends in the art business. One piece of art, which particularly touched her the most, was a colour-pencil drawing by her 11-year-old nephew, Eric. It read: “If I found a pot of gold, I would give it to my Aunt for her to make new medicine to fight very bad diseases.” A multi-faceted woman, Kiran is also a fabulous singer. She likes reading and listening to Indian classical music.

Kiran is notorious for making her folks the biggest April fools imaginable. Once she fooled one of her friends by posing as an NDTV director who was keen on interviewing her. This carried on for a long time. On the spur of the moment, she canceled the interview. “Imagine my friend’s reaction then. Boy, was it so comical!” Kiran laughs.

On another occasion, she adorned herself as a bride and invited her folks and friends for a mock engagement ceremony, managing to fool everyone.

“Kiran is a leader who is wide-awake, when everyone is fast asleep. There is an exciting pulse in her,” reveals Neelima Roshven, Consultant and Director, Wadhani Foundation, Bangalore. “We have visited a lot of wonderful holiday spots together. I especially remember the fun we had when we did Caribbean dance!”

“I would have more time to pursue my hobbies if I were less busier than I am now,” laughs Kiran. After a strenuous day, she delights in chilling out with a glass of warm wine in her hand, Pavarotti in the background and her sweetheart by her side.

A saviour for many, biotechnology has become a way of life, an absorbing philosophy, an enthralling culture for us all. With the industry clocking the highest growth rate in India, which is poised to cash in on the global boom, biotech is no longer deemed as unconventional. Branded as ‘the unconventional woman,’ Kiran has come to serve as an epitome of the new ethos of free enterprise and entrepreneurship in the Indian trellis of managed-capitalism.