Today, however, biotechnology is no longer just a laboratory discipline. Biotechnology today is an integrated inter and multi-disciplinary science where biology has married data, engineering, computation, advanced bioprocessing and enterprise to solve real world problems. Biotechnology, when I was a student in the early 1970s, was test tubes, pipettes, culture plates and microscopes. It is a platform for technologies that power healthcare, agriculture, industrial manufacturing and environmental solutions. This convergence is what makes the field dynamic and relevant to India’s future.
India is rapidly becoming a healthcare-biotech ecosystem, built around biologics, biosimilars, genomics, diagnostics, cell and gene therapies. AI-enabled discovery and domestic manufacture of complex medical technologies is on the rise. Of the over 2,40,000 startups in India 5% or 12,000 are in the biotech space, with about 30% of these in healthcare.
Portable, cost-effective solutions designed for scale and accessibility to screen newborns for hearing impairments are a reality today. Biotech in healthcare includes genomics and Next-Generation Sequencing , used for disease diagnosis and cancer profiling, as well as CRISPR and related tools that are opening opportunities in the management of inherited disorders, oncology, cell and gene therapy, rare disease workups and outbreak tracking. Bioinformatics and AI help analyse large biological datasets, discover biomarkers, predict drug targets and reduce time from discovery to application. Synthetic biology allows researchers to design non-existent biological systems and microbes for new medicines, enzymes, vaccines, biofuels, biomaterials and specialty chemicals. Synthetic biology is beginning to resemble engineering in terms of design, optimisation, and application. Recombinant technologies, cell culture platforms, monoclonal antibodies, mRNA-related platforms, process analytics and biologics manufacturing are central to modern drug and vaccine development. Production of Covid vaccines in India demonstrated how biotech can move from the bench to the bedside and from the bedside to population-level impact in record time. The future of this sector lies not only in producing large volumes, but in developing smarter and more targeted vaccines. We have strong foundations in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, clinical research and scientific talent. There are many Indian biotech success stories. The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) as an ecosystem builder has supported hundreds of biotech companies, startups and incubators, has helped generate IPs and patents and has enabled commercialisation of many products. Cancer care is probably where Indian biotechnology can have the clearest, early clinical impact. Genomics is also surging ahead, with Genome India initiative having already made significant progress. For India, biotechnology is a national opportunity – a key pillar of future growth. We are strong in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, clinical research and cost-effective innovation. There is rising momentum in biomanufacturing, startups, diagnostics and digital health-linked biotech. A strong biotech ecosystem improves healthcare access, reduces dependence on imports, builds domestic manufacturing capacity and generates high-value jobs. For this to happen, we need to translate science into products, services and systems that people can use. This requires regulatory clarity, translational funding and a culture that values implementation as much as publication. Biotechnology in relation to healthcare directly affects how we live, how we heal, how we produce and how we sustain our environment. To build this interdisciplinary capability we need scientists, clinicians, engineers, data experts, and entrepreneurs working together.
What we need now is deeper translation — stronger links between academia, industry, hospitals, startups, and policymakers so that more ideas can become real products and therapies. We need better translation from research to real-world use, so that AI tools and gene-editing innovations do not remain only in academic journals, but become practical solutions for patients and communities. The indigenous manufacture of Covaxin by Bharath Biotech and how it revolutionised Covid-19 management in India is well known. The 2024 BioE3 Policy identifies precision biotherapeutics — including monoclonal antibodies, mRNA therapeutics, and cell and gene therapy—as a priority area, alongside bio-based APIs and enzymes, functional foods, and Bio-AI-enabled biomanufacturing.
