The US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) has named Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman, Managing Director and Founder, Biocon, to its Board of Trustees. A biotechnology entrepreneur and executive with global standing, Shaw will help guide USP’s policies, finances and strategic direction as a member of the Board. In addition to her role on USP’s Board of Trustees, Shaw will serve as a member of the USP Biologics Advisory Group.
USP is a scientific non-profit organisation that develops standards for the identity, strength, quality and purity of medicines, medicinal ingredients, botanical medicinal ingredients, dietary supplements, food ingredients, and compounded medicines manufactured, prepared, distributed and consumed worldwide. Headquartered in the US, USP operates facilities with laboratory and customer support operations in Brazil, India and China, with a sales office in Switzerland.
“As a businesswoman, public health advocate and philanthropist, Shaw has innovated and campaigned tirelessly for affordable medications on behalf of patients in India and worldwide for decades,” said Dr Roger L Williams, Chief Executive Officer, USP. “We are honoured to have her serve on USP’s Board of Trustees, where her leadership and expertise will be utilised to help guide the organisation as it advances its mission to improve the health of people around the world through public standards and related programmes that help ensure the quality, safety, and benefit of medicines and foods.”
Shaw chairs the Government of Karnataka’s Vision Group on Biotechnology and serves as a member of various governmental, scientific, business and academic advisory groups, including the Advisory Council of the Government’s Department of Biotechnology in India, the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry in India, the US-India CEO Forum, the governing and general bodies of the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, the India Advisory Board for the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and the honorary Board of Advisors of The National Society of High School Scholars, US. She also serves on the Global Advisory Committee for Earth Day Network’s ‘Women and the Green Economy’ (WAGE) campaign that engages female business, government and NGO leaders to help create and develop a global green economy.
Shaw is the second non-U.S. member of the USP Board of Trustees. The first was Dr Judith Oulton, who served on the USP Board of Trustees in the 2005–2010 cycle. Shaw is honoured in this cycle as being an appointed member of the Board, which is allowed for three distinguished members of the professional community by virtue of changes to USP’s By-laws that occurred at the 2010 Convention. The decision to seek Shaw was made by the USP Board’s Governance Committee, chaired by Dr Marilyn Speedie, and endorsed unanimously by the USP Board.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai