Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw receiving the lifetime achievement award. Picture by Aranya Sen

Calcutta, Sept. 3: Biopharmaceutical company Biocon is open to the idea of setting up its research facility in Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Bengal.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of the Rs 728-crore company, announced this today after accepting the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to science and industry.

“I am extremely encouraged by the state government’s initiatives championed by the chief minister. I think it will not be a distant future when we will be able to set up our research facilities here,” said Mazumdar-Shaw, the fourth recipient of the award after sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and economists Amartya Sen and Jagdish N. Bhagwati.

IT and environment minister Manab Mukherjee presented Mazumdar-Shaw with the award instituted by ICC Calcutta Foundation, a wing of the city-based chamber.

Rolling out a red carpet for Biocon in Bengal, the minister said: “If Bangalore is known as the IT city, Calcutta is the IQ city.... Please associate yourself with Calcutta. We will extend all our support.”

Mazumdar-Shaw acknowledged Bengal’s pre-eminence in providing human resource for knowledge-driven companies like Biocon, which started its journey from a tiny garage in 1975. Today, the pioneering bio-tech enterprise employs over 1,200 people and has over 130 patents.

Reading out the citation for Mazumdar-Shaw, Rakhi Sarkar, trustee and honorary general secretary of ICC Calcutta Foundation, said: “You epitomise commitment to innovation, to entrepreneurship and to a vision of a new and vibrant India.”

Mazumdar-Shaw, accompanied by husband John Shaw, said: “I am accepting this award on behalf of my Biocon team that has made me the entrepreneur that I am.”

The audience at the one-and-a-half-hour function ? which also saw a musical performance from the choir of Assam Valley School ? included industrialists B.M. Khaitan and Sanjeev Goenka, former Davis Cupper Naresh Kumar, theatre personality Usha Ganguly and filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh.

In her address, Mazumdar-Shaw rolled out a recipe for a better and a brighter future for the country. “India is at an inflexion point and there are great opportunities facing the nation. There are challenges as well and there should be efforts to change the thought processes to take on these challenges.”

Dedicating the award to change-makers across the globe, the Biocon chief stressed the need for implementation of projects related to health services and delivery of education, and called for building bridges between industry and academia.

“I have played a small role and I know that it has impacted lives of some women. But I think each one of us should try our best to bring about change around us,” she signed off.