KIRAN MAZUMDAR

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw was born on March 23, 1953 in Pune, Maharashtra state, to Bengali parents.

Kiran Mazumdar began her working life as a brewmaster and today she is in charge of Biocon, India's largest innovation-based biopharmaceutical company and the largest insulin producer in Asia.

Her fascination with science, and in particular with chemistry and biology, started already at school. She opened her own biotech company in the 1970s, when she was only twenty-five years old.

Mazumdar-Shaw had to face discrimination. She found it difficult to find employees in India who wanted to work for a woman. Some investors and some vendors refused to do business with her unless she hired a male manager.

In July 2016, her company launched a disposable insulin pen in Japan together with Fujifilm Pharma. Later in August, some biotech drugs to treat certain cancers that her company co-developed with pharmaceutical Mylan were accepted by European regulators to be evaluated.

Her work is focused on developing insulins and insulin therapies that are truly affordable for diabetics worldwide. Her company also develops pharmaceutical cancer products to make them affordable.

This is making it possible for large numbers of patients in countries with developing economies to access these medicines.

Her work is inspired by the fact that there are absolutely essential life-saving drugs, but they are also absolutely unreachable for thousands of patients in the developing world.

"For me, a highly successful drug is not one that generates a billion dollars (in annual sales), but one that helps a billion patients."

Mazumdar-Shaw has received several international awards, for her outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry.

JULIÁN SEGURA - ENGLISH FOR FUN 3C