On January 22, 2014, Biocon announced that its chairperson and managing director, Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, will be conferred the 2014 Othmer Gold Medal, the top award of the US-based Chemical Heritage Foundation.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation, located in Philadelphia, is a collections-based nonprofit organization that preserves the history and heritage of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences and technologies. The collections are used to create a body of original scholarship that illuminates chemistry's role in shaping society.

Acknowledging Ms Shaw's outstanding contribution to the Indian Biotech sector, Ms Carsten Reinhardt, president and CEO, Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) said, "Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw was the first woman to become a brew master in India. Then she used her knowledge of fermentation to become one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of her nation."

Ms Mazumdar-Shaw will be the 20th recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal and the third woman to receive CHF's most coveted award. Under Ms Mazumdar Shaw's stewardship Biocon has evolved into India's largest biotech company committed to innovation and affordability to deliver world class therapeutics to patients across the globe.

Expressing her delight, Ms Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson Biocon, said, "I feel privileged to receive this prestigious honour and join the distinguished list of previous recipients like James Watson, Ahmed Zawail, Robert Langer and many others from whom I have drawn great inspiration and deeply admired".

The medal is presented annually and cosponsored by CHF and four affiliated organizations: the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Chemists' Club, and the Société de Chimie Industrielle. The medal commemorates Donald Othmer (1904-1995), noted researcher, consultant, editor, engineer, inventor, philanthropist, professor, and coeditor of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.

Previous honorees of the Othmer Gold Medal are John D. Baldeschwieler, Arnold O. Beckman, Ronald C. D. Breslow, Thomas Cech, Carl Djerassi, Marye Anne Fox, Mary Lowe Good, Harry B. Gray, George S. Hammond, Jon M. Huntsman, Kazuo Inamori, Ralph Landau, Robert S. Langer, Yuan Tse Lee, Gordon E. Moore, P. Roy Vagelos, James D. Watson, George Whitesides, and Ahmed Zewail.