India should focus on affordable innovation: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

India should focus on innovation that is affordable said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director, Biocon International. Mazumdar-Shaw was speaking at a panel discussion, ''Activating the Innovation Gene,'' held at EmTech 2010 in Bangalore today.

She said affordability being the first concern for India, India needed to identify the grand challenges ahead and focus on them exclusively.

She added that in her company the ethos of innovation was based on affordability and since her company saw a lot of patients from the lower strata of society, only innovation they could afford, would be of use to them.

She said she believed innovation was basically of two types with one being innovating a new idea and the other working on a unique idea that was already in existence. She added that though innovation had become something of a buzzword, it was basically about mindset and the ability to challenge the status quo.

According to Mazumdar-Shaw innovation in India is suffering due to the lack of what she called the 'inventedness' culture.

She said the focus had to be on how inventors in academia could be helped and it should also be about business models and systems.