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Today the media accolades flow freely: “the biotech queen,” “one of the world’s 50 most influential business women,” “India’s mother of invention.”
But it was not always so. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder and co-chair of Biocon, Ltd., Asia’s largest biotech firm, started her journey by learning to brew beer. She became a master brewer in Australia and went home to India, where the brewing community promptly rejected her. On the rebound, she came across an Irish biotech entrepreneur who asked her if she’d like to start a biotech company in India.
“I said if I can’t be a brewer, let me try to set up a biotech company instead,” Mazumdar-Shaw explained in a chat with Linda Darragh at the Hyde Park Center April 10. The event was organized by student-led groups including the Managerial Effectiveness Group, Chicago Women in Business; the Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital & Private Equity group; and the South Asia Business Group. “Now I often say to people, instead of using yeast to ferment beer I use yeast to make insulin.”
In 1978 she faced the hurdle of obtaining start-up money for her pharmaceutical company. Time after time Indian loan officers would counter with excuses about how difficult it would be.
“It was difficult to convince people that I should be taken seriously as a 25-year-old woman,” she said. Her persistence paid off. She got her loans and went on to struggle in survival mode for ten years, worried about how to pay her employees’ monthly salaries.
“When you’re building a company, you’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to sort of slog it out,” she said.
Ten years later, Mazumdar-Shaw needed venture capital in a country where none existed. She went for term loans until she had a chance meeting with someone who had just started a venture capital fund. Doors began opening. She eventually went on to take her company public.
In all, she went from starting the company out of her garage with 10,000 rupees—the equivalent of $2,000—to owning with her husband a 65 percent share of a $1 billion company that makes and researches drugs. “I’ve never given up,” she said. “I always say if you persevere, you will find the right people and the right opportunities.”
— Mary Sue Penn