China has moved from imitation to innovation at a breakneck speed, with the country’s biopharma share jumping from 5% to 16%, clinical trial from 3% to 28% (response rate), and publications of scientific and clinical data growing fivefold, and that’s the speed at which India has to catch up, said Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, NITI Aayog.
Ms. Ghosh, formerly president of Nasscom, at a panel discussion on ‘Digihealth & Biotech: Emerging Technologies Shaping the Future of Biotechnology’ at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2025 here on Tuesday, observed that every major sector — manufacturing, energy, agriculture, or electronics — was going to become biotech-driven industry.
According to her, the global bioeconomy will be valued at $4 trillion from $1.6 trillion by 2030, and India must decide whether it wants to follow or lead. Frontier technologies, AI, programmable biology, quantum, omnicompute, are rewriting how economies function. India cannot afford incrementalism, she said.
Greater agility
“We have to build agility into policy, regulation, and our R&D ecosystem,” Ms. Ghosh said.
Also participating on the panel, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson, Karnataka Vision Group on Biotech, and executive chairperson, Biocon Group, said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed biology from a descriptive science to a design science and it is already helping the industry predict protein structures, design molecules, and speed up vaccine development.
According to her, India’s bioeconomy has grown from $10 billion in 2014 to $165 billion today, and it is on track to cross $1 trillion in the 2040s.
“To get there we need sovereign AI capability, domestic semiconductor strength, and GMP (good manufacturing practices) scale biomanufacturing. China now contributes 30% of new global drug molecules and 20% of in-licensed molecules because its regulatory system enables rapid discovery. That is the level of speed India must match,” Ms. Shaw said.
Moderating the panel, G.S. Krishnan, president, ABLE, said that Karnataka alone contributed close to 20% to the national bioeconomy and these were the results of the State’s policy, subsidised infrastructure, and a steady flow of talent between industry and academia.
“What we’re seeing in places like Bengaluru and Hyderabad is the rise of global-scale biotech hubs, ecosystems that can compete with the best in the world and are now bringing in multinational R&D at an unprecedented pace,” Mr. Krishnan added.
Product-led growth
Earlier, speaking at a session on ‘From India Leap-frogging to Pole-Vaulting’, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Infosys co-founder, advocated for a product-led growth. “It is important that professionals think what are the white spaces and how to build products in those areas.’’
Echoing similar sentiments, Accel’s partner Prashanth Prakash said India should move to creating products and intellectual property rather than just concentrating on coding.
For decades, the country has earned its stripes by being the back office of the world, having millions of engineers who write codes, create apps, and design chips for global semiconductor companies but has lacked the skill, edge, and capability when it comes to product manufacturing, especially technology products, panellists said.
A company should determine what percentage of the revenue is from product and technology introduced in the last five years, recommended Mr. Gopalakrishnan.
Focus on R&D
Panellists concurred that while the government was doing its part in incubating start-ups and giving grants to the deep tech ecosystem, the industry also needs to do its bit by investing more in R&D.
Published – November 18, 2025 10:37 pm IST
