The US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) has named Biocon Chairman & Managing Director, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to its Board of Trustees. She  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, standard-setting organisation that advances public health through public standards and related programmes that help ensure the quality, safety and benefit of medicines and foods.

“My first focus would be to on setting standards for biosimilars as this is an important, emerging area of growth and therefore we are looking at the regulations to ensure speedy clearances,” said Shaw during the announcement of Biocon Q3 corporate results.

“As a businesswoman, public health advocate and philanthropist, Kiran Mazumdar-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 of USP.

“We are honored 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,” he added.

Shaw is the second non-US 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 has been 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.