Jul 23, 2023 · 1h 59m · wtf
Ep #7 | Who is Kiran Mazumdar Shaw Really? And WTF is Biotech? · Nikhil Kamath
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In an in-depth conversation with Nikhil Kamath, Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw reflects on her trailblazing career as India's foremost self-made businesswoman, tracing her journey from overcoming gender bias and bootstrapping a garage startup to building a global biopharmaceutical powerhouse. She shares profound insights on calculated risk, wealth creation, biotech innovation, and the societal imperative of investing in education, R&D, and philanthropy.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nikhil holds 14.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nikhil as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 1.4 Nikhil pushing back 1.5
speaking balance: gold is Nikhil, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:09:24 Kiran firmly rejects child-free framing and warns of demographic decay
When Nikhil suggests not having children is fine, Kiran immediately corrects him about her own circumstances and forcefully argues that society would collapse into demographic disaster if everyone adopted his mindset.
Hardest push from Nikhil ▶ 1:02:10 Nikhil challenges the merits of taking a company publicNikhil pushes back against IPOs by stating that a majority of scaled founders he speaks with deeply regret listing due to oppressive compliance and investor relations burdens.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:51 Kiran's scientific breakdown of enzymatic biocatalysisKiran provides a comprehensive biochemical explanation of how enzymes catalyze metabolic processes and recombinant DNA technology after Nikhil asks foundational questions about basic biotech concepts.
Nikhil holds their own ▶ 1:30:50 Nikhil demonstrates macroeconomic expertise on rupee convertibilityNikhil actively steps into the policy discussion by precisely identifying how full capital account convertibility would increase foreign investment inflows.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nikhil as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nikhil pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preview: Highlights on Wealth, Risk, and Purpose | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil sets an informal and friendly tone, inquiring about Kiran's early education. Kiran recounts how she pivoted to brewing science on her father's advice after missing out on medical school. | |
| Beer Tasting, Brand Preferences, and Heineken | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | The conversation shifts to beer preferences and Vijay Mallya's downfall with Kingfisher Airlines. Kiran explains the danger of entrepreneurial denial while Nikhil probes about ego and public image. | |
| Gender Bias as a Female Brewmaster in 1970s India | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Kiran details the deep gender discrimination she faced upon returning from Australia in the mid-1970s, where breweries refused to hire a female brewmaster. Nikhil listens with interest and asks brief clarifying questions. | |
| Encounter with Les Auchincloss and Founding Biocon | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Kiran describes her serendipitous meeting with Les Auchincloss and her initial diffidence about starting a business with no money or track record. Les convinced her to take the entrepreneurial leap. | |
| Decoding Enzyme Technologies and Green Industrial Catalysis | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil asks foundational questions about enzymes and effluents, giving Kiran the floor to deliver a masterclass on organic catalysis, recombinant DNA, and sustainable green manufacturing. | |
| Bootstrapping Biocon: Overcoming Bias and Funding Hurdles | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kiran recounts bootstrapping Biocon out of a garage with 10,000 rupees and facing severe banking bias before Canara Bank backed her. Nikhil connects personally by noting his father's career at Canara Bank. | |
| Assembling the Core Team and Fostering Entrepreneurs | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kiran narrates how early press coverage helped attract elite talent from IIT and MIT to form Biocon's foundational team. She notes with pride that Biocon has spawned over 100 entrepreneurs. | |
| Leadership Philosophy, Delegation, and Continuous Learning | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Nikhil asks whether Kiran would change any decisions regarding her early leadership team. Kiran reflects on bootstrapping her management instincts versus formal business education and the value of delegating authority. | |
| The Unilever Partnership and Reclaiming Independence | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kiran explains how Unilever acquiring her Irish partner's stake elevated Biocon's IP standards and regulatory rigor, and how she eventually bought out Unilever's 30% stake with John Shaw's help. | |
| Meeting John Shaw and the Road to Public Listing | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil identifies the financial arbitrage achieved when selling stakes to ICICI Ventures and AIG ahead of the IPO. Kiran praises John Shaw's total security and lack of ego. | |
| Pivoting to Biopharmaceuticals and Recombinant Insulin | 2 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Kiran details Biocon's massive strategic pivot from enzymes to statins and recombinant human insulin. She explains how proprietary recombinant tech broke the monopoly of expensive animal-derived insulins in India. | |
| The Strategic Power of an IPO and Corporate Valuation | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | Nikhil challenges the conventional wisdom of going public, noting that many founders regret IPO compliance burdens. Kiran strongly counters, explaining how public market valuation serves as strategic currency for mega-acquisitions. | |
| Redefining Wealth: Value Creation and Calculated Risk | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil asks what wealth means to someone without direct dependents. Kiran defines wealth as long-term value creation through differentiated, high-moat risk-taking rather than me-too businesses. | |
| Personal Choices, Demographics, and Higher Education Philanthropy | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | Nikhil shares his personal intent not to have children, asking if he will miss out. Kiran immediately corrects his framing regarding her own life, then challenges child-free trends by citing China's demographic trap, while Nikhil cites collapsing Indian fertility rates. | |
| Reforming Education and the Global Demographic Race | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The two discuss philanthropic focus on higher education and institutional capacity building. Kiran shares an anecdote from a global panel contrasting India's infrastructure deficit with China's birth-rate crisis. | |
| India's Geopolitical Edge, Digital Leap, and R&D Spend | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Nikhil and Kiran analyze India's geopolitical sweet spot and digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar. Nikhil benchmarks national R&D spending against the US, while Kiran cites South Korea and Israel to argue India must double its R&D budget. | |
| Redefining Retirement as Schedule Flexibility | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Nikhil prompts a discussion on retirement, virtue signaling, and social conformity. Kiran defines retirement as calendar flexibility and defends Bangalore's direct, non-conformist culture against societal virtue signaling. | |
| Economic Growth Drivers: Convertibility, Infrastructure, and Taxes | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil and Kiran discuss key macro growth drivers. Kiran advocates for full rupee convertibility and predictable tax policy, while Nikhil actively agrees that capital account convertibility would accelerate capital inflows. | |
| Championing Women in Business and the Industrial Workforce | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Nikhil asks why female labor force participation remains low in India and queries sales rep dynamics compared to the US. Kiran details structural VC bias and her internal corporate mandates to increase female shop-floor representation. | |
| Strategic Divestment of the Enzyme Business to Novozymes | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Kiran outlines the disciplined decision to divest Biocon's foundational enzyme business to competitor Novozymes in 2007 in order to fully capitalize the high-capital biopharma roadmap. | |
| Mastering Biosimilars and the Transformative Viatris Acquisition | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Kiran explains the vast technical hurdles of complex monoclonal antibodies and biosimilars compared to small-molecule generics, culminating in Biocon's three-billion-dollar acquisition of Viatris's biosimilars unit. | |
| The Frontiers of Biotech Innovation and Emerging Startups | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Nikhil shares his investment struggles in CRISPR and questions dystopian genetic editing fears. Kiran grounds the technology in therapeutic realities like correcting congenital defects and CAR-T cancer therapies. | |
| Precision Medicine Horizons and a Personal Story of Support | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kiran highlights personalized and precision medicine. Nikhil shares a personal testimony about how Kiran rallied medical specialists to help his sick family member. | |
| Philosophy on Loss, Resilience, and Motherly Advice | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nikhil asks how Kiran stayed resilient through the loss of both her mother and husband. Kiran reflects on her mother's advice to live fully without lingering grief, and they conclude by pledging 50 lakhs to a viewer-chosen charity. |
Statements from this episode (45)
Mazumdar-Shaw: Rejected by St. John's and CMC Vellore medical schools
“After finishing my pre-university, I wanted to actually get into medical school. Mm-hmm. And I applied to St. John's and Velour. I didn't get into either of them.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: My father created and named Kingfisher beer at United Breweries
“My father used to be the managing director and head brewmaster of United Breweries in Bangalore. He was, in fact, the original maker of Kingfisher beer, and he even christened it Kingfisher.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Vijay Mallya would still be successful if he stuck to beer
“I think if he had stuck to beer, he would still be a very successful businessman.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Vijay Mallya has paid back everything he owed
“Well, he's paid back everything he owed. So I don't understand why he's still being targeted.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Entrepreneurs must recognize failure early and pull the plug
“And in my view, I think it's about not being in denial. And to recognize failure when you start seeing warning signs. I think all of us procrastinate the decision to pull the plug.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Indian breweries refused to hire female brewmasters in late 1970s
“Whilst breweries were very willing to help me, to ask me to come and help them fix their problems, do troubleshooting, which I did. I even commissioned a brewery in Calcutta. But when it came to giving me a job, I think no one wanted to risk that. They all sai…”
Mazumdar-Shaw agreed to start Biocon with a one-year job fallback guarantee
“Why don't you really look at this joint venture and start, and if you don't like it after a year, ok, I will promise you to find you a job. Ok, so with that kind of assurance, I thought, I have nothing to lose.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Enzyme tech can replace polluting chemical industrial processes
“Today, chemicals pollute, but if you use biotransformation or biocatalysis, you can replace those chemical processes with enzyme technologies, which are very, very eco-friendly and non-polluting and biodegradable.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Enzyme tech is cheaper than chemicals factoring in effluent treatment
“And I would say, because actually it's not two X, you're actually spending much less than even the chemical technology, because you actually need to process the effluent you are You know, throwing out because of the chemical process. Right now, you don't do ef…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon's first two employees were retired tractor mechanics
“So my first two employees were retired tractor mechanics who needed a job desperately.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon was the first startup in India
“Of course, a few years later, I was very lucky that I was able to get the brightest minds to join me, and I therefore consider myself really the first startup in the country.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: I still bank with Canara Bank because they bet on me
“I always bank with Canara Bank even today because of that. He was the only one who took a bet on me.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon has created at least 100 entrepreneurs from its alumni
“The Biocon group, if I count now, I think I've created a hundred entrepreneurs from our organization.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Founders should retain maximum equity to protect strategic control
“So whilst you share equity, I think you must continue to see whether you can hold the maximum equity share in your company as long as you can to make sure you drive it in the direction that you think it ought to be driven into.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon bought out Unilever's 30% stake for $2M in 1998
“Unilever at that time owned 30% of Biocon. Okay. Now all that we paid Unilever was two million dollars for that 30%.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Founders must remain agnostic to what their platform technology produces
“You should be agnostic To what a technology is producing, but to see whether the technology can do something else. And so even though I had developed enzyme technologies based on biotechnology, you have to be agnostic to what those platform technologies can do…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon holds 50% of the global statin API market
“Today we are the largest producer of the statin APIs around the world. We have a 50% market share of statin APIs, and if we look at our share in the US market again, a 40% market share in Ottorvastatin and Rosuvastatin in the US.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon launched India's first recombinant insulin in 2004
“So in 2004, I launched India's first recombinant human insulin, and I brought the prices crashing down so much so that I forced the innovator brands to also come down to my pricing. And so now of course nobody uses animal insulin. So I was able to bring the pr…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Going public creates valuation currency essential for scaling
“I believe that as you grow your company, you need you need a capital value for a kind of a currency that you use to grow your company with. So if you create a valuation for your company, you can use that as a very, very powerful currency to do many more things…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon monetized 10% of Syngene for over $300M to fund US acquisition
“Biocon owned almost 65% of that company. But when we needed money to pay for a very recent mega acquisition that we did in the US, I actually monetized 10% of that company for over three hundred million dollars, because today, and today's engine is worth about…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon Biologics is valued at roughly $6B
“Today, for instance, I've created Biocon Biologics, which is worth about six billion dollars in valuation. And if I have to do, and I could only do that deal at that value to make that acquisition, which was part cash, part stock. And if I didn't have that cur…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Entering biosimilars now would severely hurt Indian pharma earnings
“If any Indian pharmaceutical company wants to now venture into biosimilars, like I have done, it will, you know, have a huge impact on their EBITDA and their earnings, which I don't think anyone wants to do at this point in time.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: People without children tend to be more philanthropic
“When you don't have kids, you tend to Be more philanthropic.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Philanthropy requires substantial capital over fragmented donations for impact
“Philanthropy should not be making small fragmented investments, which may not have the kind of impact you can have by making large substantial investments.”
Kamath: I will never have kids
“It was clarity over the fact it took longer than it should have, but I got some kind of clarity that I will never have kids.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: India spends less than 1% of its GDP on research
“You know, we spend less than one percent on research.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: I plan to stay actively engaged for another 10 years
“So today, I think I will give myself another 10 years of active engagement, so to speak, where I can't possibly say, oh, tomorrow I'm going to take a break, or tomorrow I want to do something which today I can't even think of.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: People in Bangalore speak their minds and avoid virtue signaling
“So, you know, Nikhil, I think virtue signaling is a problem in the world, but I for one believe that many of us in Bangalore are not virtue signaling, because we are who we are. I think we speak our minds. We are not fake. We do and say things as they are. And…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: The Modi government's stable economic policies appeal globally
“Now, obviously, the Modi government has done extremely well. It's been around for a long time, and they've basically made sure that economic policies are very stable, and that really appeals to the outside world, whether it's investors, whether it's other gove…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Bangalore's infrastructure lags behind its intellectual potential
“We have infrastructure that doesn't match the intellectual potential of this city.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon ties executive goals to reaching 30% women on shop floors
“When I look at my shop floor, there are only about 10% women on the shop floor. I'm now deliberately trying to force That ratio to increase to at least 30%. And I think it's beginning to happen. And that's because I've put it as a KRA for my leadership team sa…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Over 40% of Biocon's R&D researchers are women
“In fact, even right now, more than 40% of my researchers are women.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Pharma sales and marketing in India is 90% men
“Sales and marketing in pharmaceuticals. That is like, 90% men, which I find really not acceptable.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Divest legacy businesses if someone else can grow them bigger
“Don't be wedded to a historic business. If that business can be monetized, and if someone else can make a bigger business of that business, divest it.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: India was the only country where Biocon beat Novozymes
“I divested it to my biggest competitor, Novozyns, which was the Danish company I used to compete with worldwide. And they always told me, they said, you know, interestingly, India was the only country where you were number one.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Biocon is the only Indian firm with biosimilars in US and Europe
“Therefore, if you look at in, in India, we are the only company that has managed to develop biosimilars for global markets. No other Indian company has been able to take their products to the US. Or Europe.”
Mazumdar-Shaw on Biocon's $3B acquisition of Viatris's biosimilar business
“So on the 29th of November last year, we finalized and fructified the deal. It was a three billion dollar acquisition. Two billion in cash and billion in stock in, in, in this company.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: $100B of biologic drugs will lose patent protection by 2033
“So I think there are about a hundred billion dollars of biologic drugs coming off patent in the next 10 years. And this is the opportunity we are addressing.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Bangalore hosts more life science startups than any Indian city
“In fact, Bangalore is home to the largest number of life science startups in the country, you'll be interested to, unlike Hyderabad.”
Kamath: Personal CRISPR Therapeutics investment performed terribly over four years
“I have a small investment there, which has done terribly in the last four years.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: CRISPR gene-editing stocks will recover and yield strong returns
“No, but it will recover because now is the time. CRISPR is going to, you know, suddenly come away.”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Regulations will permit CRISPR for genetic defects, not designer babies
“So I think they will allow you to use CRISPR technologies like they use gene therapies today. To basically correct genetic deficiencies, but not to choose the kind of baby you want, you know, like saying that, okay, I want my eyes, the eyes to be of this color…”
Mazumdar-Shaw: Personally invested in Indian CAR-T cancer startup Immuneel
“So I've invested in a company called Immuneel, which has developed, you know, a CAR T therapy for untreatable, you know, blood cancers.”