India’s biotech self-reliance moment 

For much of the past two decades, global biotech leadership has clustered around a handful of hubs, each anchored by patient capital, deep research infrastructure and institutions capable of turning early science into approved medicines. That map is being redrawn. Regulators are rethinking what counts as valid preclinical evidence, global supply chains for research services are shifting, and the definition of a valuable biotech asset is expanding to include the data and platforms behind a drug, not only the drug itself. 

India sits at the center of this redrawing, with a genuine chance to build real strength in oncology innovation rather than simply supply services to hubs built elsewhere. This opportunity comes at a time when India’s bio economy has grown from around US$10 billion in 2014 to US$195.3 billion in 2025, contributing nearly 4.8 per cent to the country’s GDP, with the government targeting a $300 billion bio economy by 2030. Oncology, given the scale of unmet need, is where that opportunity is sharpest. Realising it will mean learning deliberately from the hubs that came before while building an approach suited to India’s own strengths. 

What global biotech leaders have done right 

The world’s leading biotech ecosystems did not emerge overnight. They were built through sustained investment, supportive regulation, and close collaboration between research institutions, healthcare systems and industry. 

For example, the US built its biotech ecosystem through sustained public investment in basic research, supported by institutions such as the NIH, alongside venture capital willing to back science-led companies through long development cycles. Innovation clusters such as Boston-Cambridge illustrate the advantages of bringing universities, hospitals, startups and pharmaceutical companies together. Regulatory evolution has reinforced this ecosystem, with the FDA increasingly recognising New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) as valid evidence for investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies. China followed a different but equally deliberate path. By treating biotechnology as a strategic national priority, it rapidly expanded manufacturing, contract research and translational capabilities while creating an environment that encouraged companies to move beyond service delivery and develop original therapies. Although India cannot replicate either model, both underline the importance of patient capital, regulatory support and sustained collaboration across the innovation ecosystem. Why this is India’s moment These lessons are becoming particularly relevant as several global developments converge in India’s favor. The FDA’s growing acceptance of NAMs is encouraging wider adoption of human-relevant preclinical models, while the newly enacted US BIOSECURE Act – signed into law in December 2025 – is prompting pharmaceutical companies to actively reassess portions of their research supply chains across Asia. Together, these shifts are creating demand for trusted research partners capable of delivering compliant, high-quality preclinical evidence. 

This evolving landscape presents India with a significant opportunity to strengthen its role in the global preclinical research ecosystem. The country already has many of the essential building blocks in place, including scientific talent, ICMR-compliant ethical frameworks, FDA-aligned quality standards, and an extensive network of hospitals and research institutions capable of generating high-quality, consented biological data at competitive costs. This foundation is further reinforced by a rapidly expanding biotechnology ecosystem, with 11,800 registered biotech startups in 2025. The continued growth of this ecosystem reflects stronger support from research institutions, incubators and industry partnerships, creating an environment that is increasingly conducive to scientific innovation and commercialisation. 

Building indigenous AI-driven oncology innovation 

Having the right scientific ecosystem, however, is only the starting point. The next challenge is converting these strengths into differentiated innovation, and artificial intelligence is becoming central to that effort. The quality of AI-driven oncology research depends increasingly on the biological data used to train it. While traditional models such as two-dimensional cell lines, animal studies and archived tumour samples have advanced cancer research significantly, they are increasingly being complemented by more human-relevant evidence that better reflects the complexity of disease. 

India has an opportunity to build a differentiated approach centered on fresh human tumour tissue that preserves native tumour architecture and immune interactions. Emerging platforms can generate fresh tissue, three dimensional tumour models and multi-modal molecular analysis from a single patient sample for around $950 to $1,500, compared with $20,000-30,000 for a comparable package in Western markets. Combined with India’s clinical diversity, scientific expertise and cost-efficient research ecosystem, this creates the potential to build high-quality biological datasets at scale, strengthening both AI-driven drug discovery and global research partnerships. 

Translational research and collaboration must go together 

Scientific discovery creates value only when it reaches patients. Translational research bridges this gap by connecting laboratory findings with clinical application. India already has important foundations through institutions such as the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms, the National Centre for Biological Sciences and an expanding network of hospitals capable of supporting ethically governed fresh-tissue research. 

Scaling this ecosystem will require stronger collaboration across academia, healthcare, industry and government. Shared standards for tissue procurement, chain of custody and data governance, alongside initiatives such as BIRAC’s BioE3 Bio-AI Hub, the Government of India’s Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund and international collaborations, can accelerate the movement of discoveries from research laboratories to clinical development while strengthening India’s long-term innovation capacity. Building these capabilities is not simply a scientific objective. Increasingly, it is also becoming a commercial advantage. 

Rewarding innovation platforms 

Recent transactions demonstrate that global pharmaceutical companies increasingly value the technologies behind drug discovery as much as the therapies themselves. Deals involving AI foundation models, proprietary datasets and computational discovery platforms, including transactions by GSK, Takeda and Eli Lilly, show that platform capabilities have become commercially valuable assets in their own right. GSK’s January 2026 partnership with Noetik, for example, committed $50 million upfront plus recurring annual licensing fees to access AI foundation models trained on large-scale human tumour data – a five-year agreement that treats the model itself, rather than any single molecule, as the licensed asset. 

For India, this represents an important strategic shift. The opportunity extends beyond discovering individual drug candidates to building proprietary datasets, AI-enabled platforms and translational capabilities that attract global partnerships while supporting home-grown innovation. Equally important, scientific credibility must continue to be built through rigorous validation, transparent reporting and evidence-based progress. 

Looking ahead 

India stands at an important inflection point. Regulatory change, geopolitical realignment and advances in AI are reshaping where oncology innovation can emerge. Combined with India’s scientific talent, clinical depth and growing research infrastructure, these developments create an opportunity to move beyond being a global research services provider towards becoming a center for original biomedical innovation. 

The path is not without real obstacles. Chronic shortages of patient capital, and still-maturing standards for data governance and tissue chain-of-custody, remain genuine constraints on turning these building blocks into sustained innovation. Realising that ambition will require sustained investment in indigenous R&D, stronger translational research capabilities and deeper alignment between researchers, clinicians, industry and policymakers. If these elements come together, India will not simply participate in the next generation of oncology innovation but help define it. 

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