RISE OF THE CHALLENGER

Hyderabad’s Biological e has forged multiple deals to co-develop and manufacture covid-19 vaccines, and is prepared to take on the biggest in the business

- MANU BALACHANDRAN & DIVYA J SHEKHAR

The turn of the century, Mahima Datla believes, changed her life and the fortunes of her family-owned business Biological E. It was then that, armed with an undergraduate degree in business administration from Webster University in the UK, Datla decided to join her family business, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company. Founded in 1948 by her grandfathers as Biological Products Pvt Ltd, the company started out by manufacturing Heparin, a drug to prevent blood clots.

“I didn’t intend to work here,” says Datla, 43, managing director of Biological E. “I didn’t even have a clue about what our business was, because it wasn’t a preset idea that I would graduate and join it. I stayed back because it would look good on my resume.” The plan then, Datla says, was to eventually pursue an MBA before joining a private equity firm or a management consultancy.

But, fate, and perhaps management consultancy McKinsey, had other plans.

Around the time that she joined the business, her father Vijaykumar Datla had engaged McKinsey for a structural rejig of their business. The Datlas had just finished repurchasing a 25 percent stake held by global pharmaceutical major GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). At that time, Biological E made animal vaccines, a drug for tuberculosis, and was largely a contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) for GSK.