Latest news with #KiranMazumdarShaw
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Hailey Bieber's $1 Billion Deal. Plus: How To Cut Small Talk From Work Meetings
This is this week's ForbesWomen newsletter, which every Thursday brings news about the world's top female entrepreneurs, leaders and investors straight to your inbox. Click here to get on the newsletter list! We begin this week with big news out of the beauty world: Yesterday afternoon, the publicly traded e.l.f. Beauty announced that it is acquiring Hailey Bieber's skincare and makeup company Rhode for as much as $1 billion. The deal marks one of the largest celebrity beauty acquisitions in recent years. Bieber launched Rhode in 2022 to near instant virality (as she told me that fall, there was a waitlist of 700,000 people for the company's three products). According to the e.l.f announcement Wednesday, Rhode's net sales in the year ending March 2025 hit $212 million. Bieber, whose spokesperson declined to comment on the size of her stake in the business, will remain involved in operations as chief creative officer and head of innovation. 'You don't know what to expect when it's out in the world and in people's hands,' Bieber told me in 2022. 'Did I have hopes? For sure, but this has far exceeded my hopes and expectations. I don't know how else to say it except that it just feels so crazy.' Cheers! Maggie Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Indian billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Biocon Limited (biotechnology ... More company) is seen during the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) event in Mumbai. (Photo by Ashish Vaishnav/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Thwarted in her ambition to become a brewmaster, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw channeled her frustrations into building an international knockoff drug powerhouse and has become one of the world's most successful—and richest—female entrepreneurs. 'I call myself an accidental entrepreneur,' she says. This week marked the release of the 24th annual Midas List, Forbes' ranking of the world's top venture capitalists. Unfortunately, there are just 10 women on this list of 100 people, a statistic that reflects the overall poor representation of women among the world's most powerful check writers. Getting an MBA tends to boost earnings significantly for both women and men, but it's not helping to close the gender pay gap, new research shows. A survey of more than 1,000 graduates from elite MBA programs across the U.S., Europe and Canada, found that in the first post-MBA job, women's salaries, on average, rose 52% to $131,449 from their last pre-MBA role. Men's, meanwhile, surged 73% to $140,007. In proof that a moment of forgetfulness doesn't have to derail a whole day—or in this case, match—Coco Gauff forgot her tennis rackets when she walked onto the court for her first-round match at the French Open on Tuesday. Still, the No. 2 seed got them in time to dispatch Olivia Gadecki of Australia, 6-2, 6-2, to improve to 6-0 in first-round matches in Paris. Elon Musk might be ending his time as a 'special government employee,' but the effects of his DOGE cuts will far outlast his current tenure, especially when it comes to biomedical research and funding cuts at the NIH. Michelle Heritage, Executive Director of the American Brain Foundation, recently spoke to Forbes about how Musk's cuts will 'put the brakes' on cutting edge treatment innovations for brain disease—and this could disproportionately affect women, who suffer from higher rates of Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disease. 'There isn't an ability for the private sector or private donors to fill those gaps,' Heritage said. 1. Implement some fact-checking at your organization. Fact-checking isn't just for journalism! If you publish knowledge-based content in service of your company's strategy, influence or authority, it's important to think about information integrity. 2. If you're exhausted, look at your inner monologue. The stories we tell ourselves matter. They either fuel us or drain us. Are you filling your own head with doubt, insecurity, and cynicism? Things like, 'What's the point?' or 'This is never going to work'? This type of fixed mindset thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 3. Skip the small talk. If you want to show your team empathy without wasting time, set the tone in meetings by omitting a recitation of weekend activities and instead say something like, 'Let's jump in. I know we're tight on time.' Here's how else you can strike the right balance between efficiency and empathy. A world leader said he and his wife were 'squabbling and joking around' after a video showed her apparently shoving him in the face before departing an airplane. Which couple was it? Check your answer.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
InnovationRx: Hinge May Herald A New Wave Of Digital Health IPOs
In this week's edition of InnovationRx, we look at how Hinge Health's successful IPO may be a trendsetter, Indian billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's 'biosimilars' business, RFK's changes to Covid vaccine guidance and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. Lex Annison, COO of Hinge Health, Gabriel Mecklenburg, executive chairman, Daniel Perez, CEO, Bianca Buck, head of investor relations, James Budge, CFO, and Jim Pursley, president, ring a ceremonial bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the company's IPO. © 2025 Bloomberg Finance LP Digital physical therapy company Hinge Health had its initial public offering last week, opening at $37.85. It's currently trading over 10% above that price, giving it a market cap of over $3.2 billion (though this is about half of its peak valuation in 2021). The company's product portfolio offers personalized care plans for patients with chronic conditions, as well as software that coordinates these plans with a patient's doctor. Virtual chronic care company Omada Health also filed to go public earlier this month, and that plus the success of Hinge's IPO may begin a new 'wave of digital health companies seeking a public listing following the COVID-19 pandemic,' Pitchbook analyst Aaron DeGagne wrote in a note last week. He identified several companies, including Spring Health, Zocdoc, Noom and Headspace, that 'will be closely watching Hinge Health's IPO outcome' to decide whether to start the process of going public this year. Kiran Mazumdar Guerin Blask for Forbes Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's booming drug business started not in a laboratory but in a tin-roofed shed in Bengaluru, the city formerly known as Bangalore and the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Inside, the 25-year-old was using the knowledge she had learned studying beer brewing in Australia to ferment enzymes for customers like Ocean Spray cranberry juice. Originally she had wanted to be a brewer like her father, but it was 1978 and she couldn't find a job. No one wanted to hire a woman as a brewer. Distraught and disillusioned, Mazumdar-Shaw put her education to another use: making enzymes for industrial uses. In partnership with an Irish entrepreneur who owned a company called Biocon and was looking to expand to India, she set up shop inside that hot shed. 'I call myself an accidental entrepreneur,' she says. Today, Biocon, which is publicly traded in India, brings in $1.9 billion by selling dozens of generic drugs and 'biosimilar' medications. The company also does contract research for other companies through its publicly traded subsidiary Syngene. While Forbes Self-Made Women list includes only women from the United States, Mazumdar-Shaw would easily make the top 20 were she American. She is one of the world's wealthiest self-made female entrepreneurs, with a fortune that Forbes estimates to be $3.2 billion. The biggest part of her empire is a majority-owned private subsidiary called Biocon Biologics, which focuses on biosimilars and represents nearly 55% of the parent company's revenue. Akin to what generics are for chemically synthesized drugs, these cheaper alternatives mimic biologic drugs. As with generics, companies like Mazumdar-Shaw's are allowed to develop biosimilars after a brand-name drug's patents expire. 'These are very complex, expensive drugs, and therefore it's important that companies like ours focus on affordable access,' says Mazumdar-Shaw over tea served by a butler at her Manhattan apartment. Read more here. GSK and Spero Therapeutics announced that their phase 3 clinical trial of tebipenem HBr, an antibiotic geared towards treatment of UTIs, was stopped early after an interim analysis showed significant, positive results in the nearly 1,700 enrolled patients. An independent data monitoring committee recommended the halt, as the study met its primary endpoint of showing the drug was non-inferior to a combination of the antibiotics imipenem and cilastatin. The companies plan to submit the new antibiotic to the FDA for approval in the second half of this year. Plus: Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals released positive topline results for its phase 2 clinical study of its drug candidate GM-2505 for the treatment of major depressive disorder, finding both rapid and durable decrease in symptoms for patients in the study. AI chatbots. Scribing tools. Insurance claims software. Electronic health records. Abhinav Shashank, cofounder and CEO of digital health startup Innovaccer, looks at all the new technology for healthcare providers and hospital systems and sees a big problem. 'Healthcare is the only place where technology came in and everything became more inefficient,' Shashank told Forbes. The problem is that large healthcare systems, which may have dozens of hospitals and thousands of physicians, have lots of data and a variety of tools to manage it, but no easy way to put them together. Last week, Innovaccer unveiled its solution to that problem: A new software platform called Gravity that's designed to be a one-stop shop for all those disparate tools and vast amounts of data. Read more here. Plus: Ambience Healthcare claims that a new study finds that its AI models reduce medical coding errors by over 25% compared to physicians. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced that the CDC would be dropping its recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children to receive Covid vaccines. This appears to be at odds with the FDA, which listed pregnancy as a reason for vaccination of people under 65 in its new guidance last week. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, told Forbes that 'All this does is put children in harm's way and put pregnant women in harm's way.' RFK Jr. names familiar culprits for the 'sickest generation' in the first MAHA commission report on children's health. Some struggling biotechs are being dragged down by pricey leases, especially in industry hubs like Boston, San Francisco and San Diego. Eli Lilly is buying California-based SiteOne Therapeutics, which is developing a non-opioid pain drug, in a deal worth up to $1 billion. Neuralink, the Elon Musk-founded company developing brain-computer interfaces, has raised $600 million in a venture capital round valuing the company at $9 billion. Measles infections appear to be slowing down in Texas but they're ticking up in other states, including Iowa, which saw its first infection since 2019. Conservative groups are lobbying the Trump Administration for stricter guardrails around in vitro fertilization.
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Meet India's Self-Made Biologics Brewmaster Billionaire
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's booming drug business started not in a laboratory but in a tin-roofed shed in Bengaluru, the city formerly known as Bangalore and the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Inside, the 25-year-old was using the knowledge she had learned studying beer brewing in Australia to ferment enzymes for customers like Ocean Spray cranberry juice. Originally, she had wanted to be like her father, who was the head brewmaster at United Breweries, the big Indian firm now owned by Heineken and famous for its Kingfisher beer. But it was 1978, and she couldn't find a job. No one wanted to hire a woman as a brewer. Distraught and disillusioned, Mazumdar-Shaw put her education to another use: making enzymes for industrial uses. In partnership with an Irish entrepreneur who owned a company called Biocon and was looking to expand to India, she set up shop inside that hot shed. 'I call myself an accidental entrepreneur,' she says. The business became successful enough that Unilever bought it in the 1980s along with its Irish parent. Mazumdar-Shaw stayed on to run the unit from Bengaluru until 1998, when she and her late husband, John Shaw, bought back Unilever's stake for about $2 million. It was a steal: She would eventually sell the enzymes business to Denmark's Novozymes for $115 million in 2007. By then she had bigger things in mind. In 2000, Biocon began brewing up pharmaceuticals, starting with insulin. Insulin is a type of 'biologic,' or a drug derived from a living source, traditionally a modified version of E. coli bacteria in insulin's case (Biocon uses yeast). The company's India base enabled it to make these biologics cheaper than big Western pharma outfits. Insulin is one of the simplest biologics, which are increasingly used to treat everything from cancer to immune system disorders. More complicated biologics like gene therapies and monoclonal antibodies are difficult to make—and extremely expensive. One drug for children with spinal muscular atrophy, for instance, costs more than $2 million for the one-dose treatment. It's an enormous market, but exactly how big is impossible to say. Biologics accounted for $324 billion in spending at list prices in 2023, according to health care research firm Iqvia, but that number doesn't account for the significant rebates that branded drugmakers often offer to keep their market share, lowering what insurers and patients pay but obfuscating total costs. 'These are very complex, expensive drugs, and therefore it's important that companies like ours focus on affordable access,' says Mazumdar-Shaw over tea served by a butler at her Manhattan apartment, which is adorned with landscapes by Scottish artists George Devlin and Archie Forrest. Mazumdar-Shaw, now 72, started out in the Indian market but now sells drugs globally—and is increasingly focused on the U.S. and Canada, which represent some 40% of its biologics sales. She realized early that finding a cheaper way to make such complex, life-saving drugs not only made them more accessible but was also good business. Today, Biocon, which is publicly traded in India, brings in $1.9 billion in revenue by selling dozens of generic drugs and 'biosimilar' medications. The company also does contract research for other companies through its publicly traded subsidiary Syngene. While Forbes' Self-Made Women list includes only women from the United States, Mazumdar-Shaw would easily make the top 20 were she American. She is one of the world's wealthiest self-made female entrepreneurs, with a fortune that Forbes estimates to be $3.2 billion. The biggest part of her empire is a majority-owned private subsidiary called Biocon Biologics, which focuses on biosimilars and represents nearly 55% of the parent company's revenue. Akin to what generics are for chemically synthesized drugs, these cheaper alternatives mimic biologic drugs. As with generics, companies like Mazumdar-Shaw's are allowed to develop biosimilars after a brand-name drug's patents expire. Though biosimilars are much more expensive to make than generics, requiring more than $100 million to develop, they can drastically reduce patient costs. Iqvia estimates biosimilars have saved the U.S. health care system $36 billion at list prices since 2015. With 118 more biologic drugs set to lose patent protection by 2035, the market for their cheaper mimics could be about to boom. 'Even in the U.S. now, the adoption of biosimilars is becoming far greater because health care costs are spiraling out of control, and anything you can do to rein in costs is going to be very important,' Mazumdar-Shaw says, adding: 'We have a huge opportunity to build a very large business.' Consider one of the company's newest drugs: a cheaper alternative to the blockbuster autoimmune disease therapy Stelara, which was Johnson & Johnson's top-selling drug last year, bringing in over $10 billion in revenue. Before rebates, it costs more than $25,000 per dose and is meant to be taken every eight weeks by Crohn's disease patients and every 12 weeks by those with psoriasis. Biocon's Yesintek, launched in February, does the same job for just under $3,000 per dose—roughly 90% less than Stelara. In all, Mazumdar-Shaw's company has debuted nine biosimilar drugs, including one that mimics AbbVie's rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira (whose sales peaked at $21 billion in 2022) and another that's like Genentech's breast cancer drug Herceptin, which she launched in 2017 after a friend was diagnosed and struggled to afford the course of treatment. Herceptin cost nearly $90,000 at its peak in 2019, according to a study in JCO Oncology Practice. Seven of Biocon's biosimilar drugs have been approved for U.S. use. Biocon Biologics is up against Basel, Switzerland–based Sandoz ($10 billion in revenue), Korean firms Samsung Biologics (some $3.2 billion in sales) and Celltrion (around $2.5 billion in revenue) and even major pharmaceutical companies like Amgen, whose biosimilar for Stelara recorded $150 million in revenue in the first quarter. Its market share is especially high in emerging markets, in which many of its biosimilars command an 80% share. The American market is tougher, but it's so much larger that even a 10% or 20% share of a blockbuster drug can be worth hundreds of millions. One reason the U.S. is so difficult is that drugmakers must convince America's behind-the-scenes gatekeepers—pharmacy benefit managers—that their drugs are worth placing on the lists of approved drugs, known as formularies. With its manufacturing concentrated in India and Malaysia, Biocon must also contend with potentially large Trump tariffs (currently threatened at 25%) on pharmaceuticals made abroad. 'There's a lot of reasons why we've seen it be more difficult than we'd want for biosimilars to come to market,' says Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School, adding, 'The prices for generics are much more transparent. There's largely no rebates and no gaming there.' But Mazumdar-Shaw has a track record for overcoming challenges—and ignoring conventional wisdom. When she first decided to produce insulin in India 25 years ago, she faced a market that imported only animal insulins. Although human versions were better and available, they cost about 10 times more. 'I said, 'This is crazy,' ' she recalls. 'Just because we cannot afford human insulin, we are having to use animal insulin, so let me do something about it.' At the time, Biocon was still making industrial enzymes and had no experience in the drugmaking business. But within four years, it had developed India's first human insulin, making it possible for millions of diabetics who needed insulin treatment to get better drugs. 'That is what then gave me the raison d'être to focus on biopharmaceuticals,' she says. Today, Biocon has 20 drugs in oncology, immunology, diabetes and ophthalmology either on the market or in the works globally. It also introduced its first GLP-1 biosimilar for diabetes and obesity in the United Kingdom and anticipates coming to the U.S. when popular drugs like Ozempic come off patent. Mazumdar-Shaw is confident she can commercialize a drug every year in the U.S. or Europe from now until 2030. Biocon plans to launch a biosimilar to Regeneron's blockbuster eye disease drug Eylea ($10 billion in 2024 sales) later this year. She hopes to spin off Biocon Biologics into a separate public company in the next 18 months. 'I believe we are in a humanitarian business,' she says, 'and I think we are doing our bit for affordable access, which is what we want.'
Bloomberg
12-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Biocon Executive Chairperson on Insulin Capacity
Biocon and Biocon Biologics Executive Chairperson, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, says they're adding capacity at their insulin facility in Malaysia and sees a 'windfall' from Novo Nordisk's global pullback from the production of the drug. She spoke exclusively on Bloomberg's "Insight with Haslinda Amin." (Source: Bloomberg)
Reuters
08-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
India's Biocon posts higher quarterly profit on boost from generics, biosimilar business
BENGALURU/HYDERABAD May 8 (Reuters) - Indian biopharma firm Biocon's ( opens new tab profit more than doubled in the fourth quarter, led by strong demand for its generics and biosimilar drugs in its key U.S. and European markets. The company's consolidated net profit climbed 153% to 3.45 billion rupees ($40.43 million), after an exceptional item, for the three months ended March 31 from a year ago. "Our biosimilars continue to build impressive shares in global markets with four biosimilars recording sales of $200 million each in FY25," Biocon Group Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in a statement on Thursday. Biosimilars are copies of costlier biological drugs for treating major illnesses such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Biocon's total quarterly revenue rose 12.3% to 44.54 billion rupees. Revenue from its generic drugs business, which declined in the past few quarters, rose 46% to 10.48 billion rupees in the fourth quarter, aided by new product launches, especially in the oncology segment. The company expects to see a recovery in its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) business in fiscal 2026. APIs are key components in a drug that produce the intended therapeutic effects. Quarterly revenue in the company's biosimilars business rose 4.5%. Biocon said its focus is also on expanding its diabetes and obesity drugs portfolio, the demand for which has skyrocketed in global markets. ($1 = 85.3410 Indian rupees)
