China has moved from imitation to innovation at breakneck speed, with the country’s biopharmaceutical share jumping from 5% to 16%, clinical trials from 3% to 28% (response rate), and scientific and clinical data publications increasing fivefold, and that’s the pace India needs to catch up, said Debjani Ghosh, Aayog Distinguished Fellow.
Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Digihealth & Biotech: Emerging Technologies Shaping the Future of Biotechnology’ at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2025 here on Tuesday, Ms Ghosh, former president of Nasscom, noted that every major sector – manufacturing, energy, agriculture or electronics – will become a biotechnology-driven industry.
According to her, the global bioeconomy will be valued at $4 trillion by 2030 from $1.6 trillion and India must decide whether to follow or lead. Frontier technologies, artificial intelligence, programmable biology, quantum, all-computing, are rewriting the functioning of economies. According to her, India cannot afford incrementalism.
Greater agility
“We need to build agility into policy, regulation and our research and development ecosystem,” Ms Ghosh said.
Also participating in the panel, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman, Karnataka Vision Group on Biotech, and Executive Chairman, Biocon Group, said artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed biology from a descriptive science to a design science and is already helping industry predict protein structures, design molecules and accelerate vaccine development.
According to her, India’s bioeconomy has grown from $10 billion in 2014 to $165 billion today and is on track to cross $1 trillion in the 2040s.
“To get there, we need sovereign AI capabilities, homegrown semiconductor power and GMP (good manufacturing practice) scale biomanufacturing. China now contributes 30% of global new drug molecules and 20% of licensed molecules because its regulatory system enables rapid discovery. That’s a level of speed that India needs to match,” Ms Shaw said.
GS Krishnan, president of ABLE, moderating the panel said that Karnataka alone contributed nearly 20% to the national bioeconomy and this was the result of state policies, subsidized infrastructure and a steady flow of talent between industry and academia.
“What we are seeing in places like Bengaluru and Hyderabad is the rise of global biotech hubs, ecosystems that can compete with the best in the world and are now bringing transnational R&D at an unprecedented pace,” Krishnan added.
Product-driven growth
Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, had earlier advocated for product-led growth in a session on “From India Hopping to the Pole”. “It’s important for professionals to think about what the white spaces are and how to create products in those areas.”
Echoing similar sentiments, Accel partner Prashanth Prakash said that India should move to creating products and intellectual property rather than just focusing on coding.
For decades, the country has capitalized on being the world’s back office, with millions of engineers writing code, building apps and designing chips for global semiconductor companies, but it lacks the skills, edge and capability to make products, especially technology products, the panelists said.
A company should determine what percentage of revenue comes from product and technology introduced in the last five years, Mr. Gopalakrishnan advised.
Focus on research and development
The panelists agreed that while the government was doing its part to incubate start-ups and provide grants to the deep tech ecosystem, industry must also contribute to greater investment in research and development.
Published – 18 Nov 2025 22:37 IST
