Bengaluru has the largest number of life science start-ups: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Bengaluru has the largest number of life science start-ups, says Indian billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, and not Hyderabad. In the latest episode of a podcast series hosted by Nikhil Kamath, Shaw said, “Bengaluru is good at launching new innovative biotech ventures. There are many, many companies. In fact, Bengaluru is home to the largest number of life science start-ups in the country.”

She also mentioned that Pandoram Technologies is doing notable work in the field of biotechnology.

The Bengaluru-based start-up is a tissue engineering and regenerative medicine company that uses the foundational and translational principles of biology and engineering to design therapeutic products with the aim to alleviate the health conditions of patient’s suffering including corneal dystrophies, lung related disorders and liver diseases.

Besides Pandoram, Shaw highlighted that several start-ups are emerging in this space, particularly, in the “cell and gene therapy” segments. She noted that she has invested in several start-ups including Immuneel Therapeutics, ImmunoACT, Mapmygenome, among others. 

Talking about the biotechnology space, Shaw said it is one which is buzzing with a lot of action and has “limitless” opportunities.

When asked by Kamath what areas young entrepreneurs can look out for while venturing into this area, she said, “I don’t think I would like any entrepreneur to get fixated to one area.” However, she added genomics, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), mRNA, and personalised medication are a few areas to watch out for.

Shaw started biotechnology company Biocon in the late 1970s. She scaled the company which became publicly listed in 2001. During the interview with Kamath, Shaw also spoke about her friend and troubled entrepreneur Vijay Mallya. She also called him a very likable and generous person. 

Talking about Mallya’s downfall, Shaw said, “In my view, it’s about not being in denial and to recognise failure when you start seeing warning signs.” She said that Mallya did not want to give up on his passion project—Kingfisher Airlines—and his dream to make it an international endeavour. Not pulling the plug on time and procrastinating till is too late is what led to the unravelling of such a crisis, she said.

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