Our zest for R&D led to Bharat Biotech’s success

Visakhapatnam: “Our passion to do something towards affordable healthcare brought me and my scientist-hubby Krishna Ella by quitting a promising career in the United States to form a startup in 1996 in Hyderabad, a totally new place for us,” said Suchitra Ella, co-founder and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech International Ltd, who hails from Chennai.

Bharat Biotech is a highly successful Indian multinational biotech company involved in delivering high quality vaccines and biotherapeutics and research to fight against diseases by focusing on emerging markets.

During an interactive session, on her foray into a successful entrepreneurship into pharmaceutical and life sciences, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Monday, she attributed their passion, their enormous responsibility towards growing children and do something challenging at a time when startup culture had not gained ground in India, as the reasons contributing to their entrepreneurship journey.

On their contribution to developing Covaxin, the indigenously developed and highly successful Covid-19 Indian vaccine which was supplied to all over the world, she gave credit to her 2500-odd employees who worked day and night along with the day and night virtual mode monitoring during the pandemic by the officials of Ministry of Health for, what she termed ‘unbelievable human endeavour and spirit.’

The government ministry worked at such a fast pace, sometimes beyond their imagination and also led to strengthening their resolve. “We worked in tandem to do what we were mandated to do,” she said, in response to a query raised by CII Andhra Pradesh outgoing chairman Neeraj Sarda.

Suchitra, who is the Southern Zone Chairperson of CII, said when they left the US to set up a unit at Genome Valley in Hyderabad to try their luck in biotechnology, there was hostile response from their near and dear. Many said “we might have lost our jobs, our visa might have expired or we were caught by law for some wrongdoing.”

She said “it was a very tough job. We had to run from pillar to post to get a piece of land at Genome Valley and access to funding from angel investors and high networth individuals (HNI). At that time, there were thousands of doubts regarding the success of our venture. Many wanted to know why they take such a long time to develop molecules.”

Suchitra said they had a zest of research and science. “Being real life partners, we knew each other’s boundaries and never tried to step into the shoes of the other. Finally, we were successful in making use of technologies as without technological advancement, nothing can be achieved,” she remarked.

“Now the country has a very conducive startup ecosystem and funding from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and Technology Development Fund are available for startups who dream to become commercial entities and unicorn companies,” she pointed out.

It was a very tough job. We had to run from pillar to post to get a piece of land at Genome Valley and access to funding from angel investors and HNIs. At that time, there were thousands of doubts regarding the success of our venture. Many wanted to know why they take such a long time to develop molecules

- Suchitra Ella, co-founder, Bharat Biotech International Ltd