A Biosimilar Shot In The Arm

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s successful foray into the lucrative US biosimilars market has resulted in a surge in her ranking among India’s rich

- Harichandan Arakali

In June, when Biocon and its commercial partner Mylan NV announced they had won the USFDA approval for their bio-generic version of the drug Pegfilgrastim, it was the second approval Biocon was getting in America for a ‘biosimilar’ it had developed for use in certain cancer-related treatments. The company is marketing its Pegfilgrastim biosimilar under the brand name Fulphila.

Earlier this year, the Bengaluru company built by billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw had announced a global teamup with Sandoz, a unit of pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG, to develop and commercialise biosimilars. This was shortly after Biocon became the first company in the world to win US FDA approval for its version of Trastuzumab, which it would market under the name Ogivry.

Partnerships such as the ones with Mylan and Sandoz show that Biocon has won the respect of some of the largest players in the multinational pharmaceuticals business. That is reflected in the surge in Shaw’s ranking this year, among India’s richest.

The last 12 months have seen Shaw’s vision of building a deep R&D-based biotech firm, and not just a copycat chemical generics maker, vindicated. Investors took notice, too, pushing up the company’s stock to levels where Shaw’s personal wealth rose by some two-thirds to $3.6 billion. That made Shaw the biggest gainer in percentage terms in this year’s list of billionaires in India—her rank jumped from 72 last year to 39.