Wanted to begin by asking you about India because I think that is, of course, the biggest talking point at the IGF as well. Clearly it seems like a Goldilocks scenario for India, but the question to you is, is this optimism actually being shared and felt by corporate India as well?

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: Absolutely, I think India Inc has been optimistic for a long time because I think a lot of geopolitics is basically playing to our favour. And I think apart from that I believe that India provides a very strong case for providing a very robust and resilient supply chain to any strategic partnership in terms of economies of scale, in terms of the tech talent that we provide for supporting these supply chains, etc, etc. So, I think this is a very unique time for India to really take advantage of all that is playing.

Look at the knee-jerk reaction that the world had to COVID was to shift from globalisation to localisation which I really think is a flawed idea. I think globalisation really delivered affordability and access to products and services in a very efficient way because of economies of scale. Localisation is going to disrupt that. I believe localisation especially in small economies and here we are talking about the UK and India. So, for UK localisation is not going to provide them the kind of the cost and the access that they are looking for and I think that is what I think this partnership ought to be.Could you talk to me about the future of the Indian pharmaceutical industry because naysayers used to say that India does not do much R&D on its own, it is only a provider and replicator per se of the drugs. How do you expect the Indian pharmaceutical industry to shape up, let us say five to ten years from here on, as an important global supply chain partner.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: So, let me put it into two buckets. So, the first bucket is really about generics and biosimilars. These are absolutely essential to contain healthcare costs. I think every economy is battling with spiralling healthcare costs. And I can tell you if there was a disruption in the generics supply chain, we would be in a very serious crisis in the world when it comes to healthcare. You have seen that the US itself has been challenged with drug shortages. So, I think this is a very important part of our business to keep in mind. So, the Indian pharmaceutical industry that has provided a very large proportion of generics to world markets is playing a phenomenal role in helping every economy contain costs. Now coming to value creation. You are right. I mean India caters to almost 30% of the world pharmaceutical industry. When it comes to volume, it is less than 10%, it is just about 5%. So, I think when you look at the value creation opportunity that India has I think it is very exciting. Let me talk about your own company Biocon. Talk to me about the market share gains that you are expecting with respect to your key drugs and the new launches which are lined up and you are excited about.

So, to begin with, we are very excited with the way we have gained market share in recent times for our biosimilars in the US. We have always been sort of aiming for a 20% market share for our insulins globally and it is happening. I mean, it has happened in the US even sooner than we anticipated largely because of this huge demand. That has kind of created a large opportunity for us in insulins and I think we are benefiting from that, sort of windfall. Now, when you come to the other products, our cancer antibodies and now most recently our own generic GLP-1s are very-very interesting in terms of value creation and opportunities, the opportunities that are being created to gain very good market share because we find that in many of these areas, the complexity of developing such products is giving us a competitive edge.

I wanted to understand the way you are kind of strategizing about your business right now because you did sell out a part of the business to Eris as well and on the biologic side of things I wanted to understand from you what could be the next big drivers, let us say which geographies will drive the growth for you?

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: So, let me answer this in two ways. The sale of our India business to Eris was largely on account of the fact that we had a very small portfolio of speciality products. And to be successful in India, you need to be large and diversified. And we felt that we were not going to be able to really capture the kind of market share that our products deserve. And therefore, we basically sold the business to Eris, who is doing a great job of delivering on that opportunity. Because we do have very specialised products, but it required a much larger sales force to really do justice to it.

Now coming to which are the important markets for us, obviously, the US is an important market. Many markets in Europe are proving to be very attractive markets for us. Germany, France, Scandinavia, the British, the Isles, and of course, Iberia. These are very-very important opportunities for us to drive market share, volume, growth and then comes the rest of the world or emerging markets. And I can tell you, this is a very-very exciting opportunity for us because we are seeing huge demand and huge growth for biosimilars and for speciality generics. And I am very excited with the kind of growth trajectory that we can pursue. And it is really about ensuring that we have the capacities in place because demand is growing.

You managed to successfully integrate Viatris. How do you plan to scale it up? And I also wanted to understand on the balance sheet side, debt was an issue earlier. You have managed to bring it down. But would you now say it is at a comfortable level?

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: Looking at good double-digit growth for the foreseeable future. I think when you mentioned debt, yes, we have reduced debt significantly and we are on that path of further reduction of debt. But the debt is comfortable to service. It is really about ensuring that we gain the kind of market share for our biosimilar products around the world in terms of value maximization. Because I think we are seeing in certain molecules, there has been a kind of unexpected commoditisation because there were just too many players pursuing that huge opportunity like adalimumab and of course, that created almost like a generics model where everyone kind of brought down pricing to an unexpected level. But other than that, I think we see that we have many-many other opportunities and other areas of growth and value creation in the portfolio and pipeline that we are creating and we have created.

I have to ask you about the generic side of the business as well. And analysts, there are concerns that the growth has been a bit slower versus their expectation and they are only seeing a recovery in the second half of the year. Do you concur?

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: No, I do not concur with that view because I think there is no question of recovery. I think we have been building our generics business. We are a late entrant in the generics business. And as I mentioned, we have a speciality portfolio. And I think you have to watch this space. I think we have a good portfolio of generic molecules, very differentiated. GLP-1s is going to be a huge opportunity for us going forward. We also have a very extensive kind of portfolio of immunosuppressants and anti-infectives, which are going to be quite key to our growth. And I think as you watch our generic performance, you will see that there is going to be good growth going forward.