Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon

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Australia-educated Kiran Mazumdar Shaw returned to India in 1975 with humbler dreams than Biocon, the company she founded. She wanted to be a master brewer, an effort that came a cropper, so she started as an enzyme manufacturer. Since then, Biocon has used its core strength바카라”fermentation technology바카라”to evolve a portfolio of cutting-edge insulins and a range of other drugs.

Mazumdar Shaw is now one of India바카라™s wealthiest women and Biocon the biggest biotech company. This was not exactly an easy rise for either. It was, after all, started with an initial capital of only Rs 10,000 ($150 today) in 1978, when Mazumdar Shaw was 25. She is now a Rs 12,000 crore-plus billionaire and Time named her as one of the world바카라™s 100 most influential people.

In the initial years, Mazumdar Shaw struggled to raise capital. This was not just for being a woman at the helm of a tech-centric company, but also because she had sought to graduate Biocon from the simpler world of enzymes into the advanced and internationa­lly-competitive field of bio-pharma.

The tide turned in the 바카라™90s. That is when Mazumdar Shaw turned Biocon into an increasingly versatile concern, getting on to the cutting-edge of statins research. The company is now focused on research and development, of biosimilars in particular. (Statins are a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol, while biosimilars are drugs that are near-identical to existing drugs. They are not to be confused with generics.)

Mazumdar Shaw is a self-made entrepreneur. It is when Biocon was valued at a billion dollars on the stock exchanges that she earned her reputation of being a serious player. Until then, she was mostly regarded as ano­­ther player with potential who would cash in on the booming pharmaceutical sector, not blaze a trail through it.