India is potentially on track to becoming a $300 billion bioeconomy

Srinath Venkatesh, MD, India & South Asia, Thermo Fisher Scientific, shares insights on the drivers shaping India's biopharma growth, the company's role in building innovation capacity, upcoming investments in Hyderabad's Genome Valley, and how partnerships, policy support, and startup collaborations are accelerating India's move up the value chain, in a freewheeling conversation with Lakshmipriya Nair

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To understand the landscape better, how big is biopharma in India? Where are we headed, and what role does Thermo Fisher play in this journey?

India is potentially on track to becoming a $300 billion bioeconomy. The major shift we are witnessing is from being a largely generics-driven industry — which accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's generics supply — to developing and manufacturing larger molecules and biologics. That’s where we see significant momentum, and that’s where companies like us play a critical role.

We continue to support generics manufacturers, who remain key customers, but the future opportunity clearly lies in enabling the transition to complex biologics. This shift is being driven by several factors.

First, strong government support through initiatives like PRIP and BioE3 has created an enabling policy environment.

Second, private sector investment is rising. As companies prepare to compete globally, they are raising the bar in quality, R&D, and regulatory compliance, including global approvals like the US FDA.

Third, India has a large talent pool. While not all expertise is specialised yet, the foundational capability is strong and upskills rapidly once deployed.

And finally, there is a strong national push toward innovation and moving up the value chain.

From our perspective, as this ecosystem evolves, we are well-positioned across the entire biologics value chain. If you break it down into four phases, we operate in all of them:

Discovery & R&D: We offer a wide range of analytical and scientific instruments.

Process development: We provide comprehensive solutions to build scalable and efficient production workflows.

Clinical research: Our teams support clinical trial design, protocol development, packaging, storage, and logistics.