'She had to sell her property': How losing her best friend to cancer led Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw into cancer biosimilars at Biocon

Biocon Co-founder and Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has said that the death of her best friend from cancer inspired her to enter the cancer biosimilars space, with the goal of making expensive treatments more affordable for patients.

Speaking on a podcast with entrepreneur Raj Shamani, Mazumdar-Shaw recalled how her friend struggled to pay for advanced cancer therapies despite being financially well-off.

"I lost my best friend to cancer and she needed these new biologic therapies," she said. "She was paying something like ₹2.5 lakh per dose and she was quite a wealthy person. I mean she was a very well-to-do professional, but even she had to sell her property to afford the treatment."

She said the experience left her questioning why life-saving medicines were priced beyond the reach of many patients.

"What is this? What is happening? Why are we paying so much for these drugs?" she recalled thinking. "Can't we make them cheaper?"

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From insulin to cancer care

Mazumdar-Shaw said Biocon's experience in making insulin more accessible convinced her that the same approach could be applied to other expensive therapies.

"We've disrupted this space and we've expanded access to millions of patients around the world. If we can do that for insulin, we should do it for every product we develop," she said.

That belief eventually led the company to focus on cancer treatment, particularly biologic drugs used in immunotherapy.

What are Biosimilars?

Explaining the concept, Mazumdar-Shaw said biosimilars are developed to closely match original biologic medicines, which are often expensive and difficult to manufacture.

A biosimilar is a highly similar version of an original biologic drug, with no clinically meaningful differences in safety or effectiveness.

"These are like copies of these biologic drugs which are so expensive, so complex," she said. "These are what we call as protein therapeutics."

She explained that many biologic medicines are made from proteins found in living systems. Among them are monoclonal antibodies, which form part of the body's immune response and can be used to target diseases such as cancer.

"This is what is called as immunotherapy," she said.

According to Mazumdar-Shaw, antibody-based therapies were once "very expensive, very complex, very difficult to develop."

Developing a breast cancer biosimilar

Determined to address the high cost of treatment, Mazumdar-Shaw said she challenged Biocon's scientists to develop a biosimilar for the type of breast cancer drug her friend had needed.

"I told my scientists, let's develop this antibody for this breast cancer which my friend died of and see if we can develop it and make the product as close to the original drug as possible. That's why it's called a bioimilar," she said.

At the time, there were no dedicated regulatory pathways for biosimilars.

"But I said if you follow the science, probably the pathways also will follow the science, and I was right," she said.

A global first for biocon

Mazumdar-Shaw said Biocon moved ahead with development despite the regulatory uncertainty and eventually achieved a global milestone.

"We became the first company in the world that was approved by US FDA in 2017 as the world's first US FDA-approved biosimilar trastuzumab for breast cancer patients," she said.

Trastuzumab is a widely used treatment for certain types of breast cancer. The approval marked a significant moment for Biocon and for the broader biosimilars industry, demonstrating that lower-cost versions of complex biologic medicines could meet the standards required by regulators while expanding access for patients.