Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Jul 15: India’s pharmaceutical sector is rapidly transitioning from a generics-focused industry to an innovation-led ecosystem, with the number of India-origin pharmaceutical patent families increasing more than four times over the past decade, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The joint report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and HealthKois revealed that India’s drug discovery pipeline has expanded to over 1,095 research programmes across 195 companies, highlighting the country’s growing capabilities in developing new medicines.
The report noted that pharmaceutical patent families originating from India climbed from around 716 in 2015 to 2,995 in 2024. During the same period, private equity and venture capital investments in the sector more than doubled, reaching $731 million in FY26, reflecting increasing investor confidence in India's life sciences industry.
India’s biotechnology ecosystem has also expanded significantly, with the number of biotech startups rising from nearly 1,500 to 2,400 over the past decade. The report said India's contribution to global pharmaceutical patents has increased from about 3–4 per cent to nearly 10 per cent, indicating a substantial improvement in the quality as well as the volume of innovation.
According to the study, Indian companies have developed more than 10 novel drug assets in the last ten years, demonstrating a clear shift beyond manufacturing generic medicines and biosimilars toward discovering, licensing and commercialising innovative therapies for international markets.
The report identified four major factors driving this transformation. These include nearly $5 billion in government support for early-stage and translational research, stronger collaboration between academic institutions and industry, regulatory reforms that have shortened drug development approval timelines from 180–270 days to 60–120 days, and the growth of shared research infrastructure such as Genome Valley and C-CAMP.
Among the notable achievements highlighted were BIRSA 101, India's first homegrown CRISPR-based therapeutic, and NexCAR19, an indigenous CAR-T cell therapy that is available at nearly one-tenth the cost of similar treatments offered overseas.
Priyanka Aggarwal, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG India and Southeast Asia, said India's pharmaceutical innovation journey has gathered significant momentum and is steadily evolving into a sustainable innovation ecosystem.
Charles Janssen, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HealthKois, said India is already producing globally relevant scientific research, with multinational pharmaceutical companies licensing Indian innovations and indigenous CAR-T therapies delivering affordable treatment options. He added that continued investment in early-stage scientific research would be essential for building a long-term innovation ecosystem.
The report concluded that India's greatest opportunity lies in leveraging its combination of scientific expertise, cost efficiency and vast, diverse patient data to create globally competitive innovation platforms rather than relying solely on cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs.