Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Deep-Tech Bets

Biocon's path from enzymes to therapeutics is summarized in the biography as 'exponential'. From its garage origin the enzyme business scaled to a multinational biopharmaceutical enterprise that delivers world-class therapeutics globally, is India's largest insulin producer, and has pioneered the world's only Pichia-based recombinant human insulin — now available in over 40 countries. Mazumdar-Shaw is chairman and managing director throughout.

Wikipedia describes Biocon as Asia's largest insulin producer and credits the company with pioneering a Pichia-derived recombinant human insulin now sold in over 40 countries. Major research areas today include cancer, diabetes and auto-immune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Biocon directed roughly 10% of revenue into R&D as of 2014 — a higher proportion than most Indian pharmaceutical peers —.

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.