Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Infrastructure Building

In 1984 Mazumdar built a dedicated R&D team at Biocon focused on novel enzymes and solid substrate fermentation. A pivotal external injection came in 1987, when Narayanan Vaghul of ICICI Ventures backed Biocon with a US$250,000 venture fund that financed a new plant built around a semi-automated tray culture process inspired by Japanese techniques. In 1989 Biocon became the first Indian biotech firm to receive U.S.

The big breakthrough described by WIPO was Biocon's invention, in the 1990s, of a new fermentation technology to replace the conventional tray-based culture of microorganisms. Trademarked as the PlaFractor, it is a bioreactor that enables the cultivation and extraction of microorganisms to occur within a fully enclosed, computer-controlled system.

Bangalore is framed by WIPO as India's biotech capital, with over 90 biotechnology firms clustered there, attracted by institutions like the Indian Institute of Science and the National Centre for Biological Resources. The Karnataka government, with Mazumdar-Shaw chairing the Vision Group on Biotechnology, rebranded the city as 'The Biocon City' and positioned the annual BangaloreBio event as India's flagship biotech gathering —.