Mythbreaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech

At the age of twenty-five, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw partnered with an Irish entrepreneur, Leslie Auchincloss, to start Biocon India in a garage in Bengaluru. Armed with just a degree in beer making, this move to industrial enzymes and commodity small molecules was as audacious as it was far-sighted. Thirty-seven years on, Biocon is India’s largest research-driven biotech enterprise. And the accidental entrepreneur, Mazumdar-Shaw, is today a tough negotiator and a habitual dealmaker, casually breaking several myths about Indian women in business. Without a supportive academic ecosystem for biotechnology and in the absence of sound policymaking, Mazumdar-Shaw has tirelessly sought out global alliances and resources in her quest for ideas and molecules. To some extent, she has also plugged the brain drain of Indian scientists, making them collaborators in the fight against diabetes and cancer, and creating a space for research in India. In Mythbreaker, author Seema Singh brings alive Mazumdar-Shaw’s three-decade journey through a motley cast of characters – scientists, ministries, pharma rivals, FMCG giants – who came together to produce a narrative that is remarkable for its randomness, luck and relentless pursuit of the next scientific breakthrough.