Ep. 93: Compassionate Capitalism, with Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

“I'm very committed to compassionate capitalism, which is what I like to call my business. … My products are there to help patients who need it anywhere in the world. And therefore, I believe that if I can actually produce these products in a way that provides affordable access … I will be very driven by that sense of purpose.”As one of India’s most celebrated biopharmaceutical entrepreneurs, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been committed to healing the sick since she was 25. In 2010, Time magazine named her one the 100 most influential people in the world. Today, the executive chairperson of Biocon is determined to make a difference through both her philanthropy and her company’s promising COVID-19 treatment. Sadly, she may become a test patient herself: Shortly after this interview was recorded, she tested positive for the virus.“We did a proof of concept study in India with our drug and we actually got some very compelling results,” she tells Mike. “All the patients who took our drug recovered very well and in the small control arm, which did not take our drug, we had quite a few deaths. We got an emergency use approval from the regulator in India. We just received it a couple of weeks ago, and in these two weeks we've actually treated over a thousand patients in India, and most of them have recovered.”