Koduru Ishwara Varaprasad Reddy (born 17 November 1948) is an Indian entrepreneur and founder of vaccine manufacturing company Shantha Biotechnics.
[3] Dr. K.I Varaprasad Reddy was born in an agriculture family from Papireddy Palem village in Nellore district.
[5] In 1990, he attended a WHO conference in Geneva and he heard some critical remarks about India not being capable of developing a vaccine for Hepatitis B.
[3] He was not pleased with what he heard and started Shantha Biotechnics Ltd with a mission to produce cost-effective vaccines that would be available for the common man, while still maintaining international quality standards.
Shantha Biotechnics Ltd made the country's first indigenously developed recombinant hepatitis B vaccine.