In frontier technologies, leadership is decided long before markets are fully formed. Countries that move early don’t just capture disproportionate value—they help write the rules and, as we are increasingly seeing, secure control over critical supply chains. For India to truly lead in frontier technologies, we must spot the shifts early—and act with the ambition and intent to lead.
Few shifts on the technology horizon will be more consequential than the convergence of artificial intelligence and biology, enabling what many call ‘programmable biology’: the ability to design and engineer living systems with unprecedented precision. Put simply, what computing did for information, biology is beginning to do for matter itself—transforming how we discover medicines; grow food; manufacture materials; produce sustainable fuels’ and protect human, animal and planetary health.
The Bio Century—a term popularised by American author Jeremy Rifkin—is no longer a distant promise. The world’s first personalised CRISPR gene-editing technology has already saved an infant with a rare genetic disorder in the US. Japan is advancing therapies based on genetically reprogrammed cells for diseases such as Parkinson’s. Precision genome engineering is helping create climate-resilient crops in India as well as many other parts of the world. Many of the most consequential scientific breakthroughs of recent years are emerging at the intersection of biology, engineering and computation. Biology is clearly moving rapidly from discovery to real-world impact.
By 2050, the global bioeconomy is projected to exceed $30 trillion. India cannot afford to be a late entrant to this transformation.
The good news is that we are not starting from scratch. Over four decades, India has built a strong biotechnology ecosystem anchored in a strong vision, institution building and consistent policy. India’s bioeconomy has grown nearly 20-fold from $10 billion in 2014 to $195.3 billion in 2025, and now contributes almost 5 percent of GDP.
But the future demands a much bigger ambition. We, at Niti Aayog, estimate that India has the potential to build a $691-billion bioeconomy by 2035 and a $2.6 trillion one by 2047, while creating more than 30 million high-value jobs.
The road lies not in simply creating more institutions or programmes. It is in connecting and converging what we already have—bringing our scientific institutions, industry, startups and the government together around shared national missions, backed by patient capital, enabling infrastructure and regulatory reforms that dramatically shorten the journey from lab to market.
We need to focus on five priorities to make this happen.
First, converge our capabilities around six nationally-coordinated missions. Spanning gene and cell therapies, climate-resilient agriculture, synthetic biology, the One Health programme, marine biotechnology and next-generation bio-pharmaceuticals, these missions would bring together existing programmes, institutions and capabilities into a coherent national architecture—with clear 10-year roadmaps, accountable lead agencies and measurable outcomes. The objective is to break down silos and turn India’s individual strengths into national capabilities at scale.
Second, bridge one of India’s biggest structural gaps: the journey from lab discovery or innovation to commercial scale. Too many promising technologies fall by the wayside because the patient capital required for scaling up is scarce. We recommend a ₹50,000-crore bioeconomy growth fund anchored within the national research, development and innovation framework to address this through finance, equity and infrastructure support. The goal is not simply to fund more research, but to create globally-competitive biotechnology companies.
Third, make regulation an enabler of innovation. We recommend simpler, predictable and risk-based regulatory pathways, regulatory sandboxes for frontier technologies, a strengthened Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation and clearer intellectual property frameworks. This is not about weaker regulation, but smarter norms to protect safety while giving innovators and investors greater certainty and speed.
Fourth, invest decisively in talent. No country becomes a biotech powerhouse without world-class scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and regulators. India’s demographic advantage will translate into scientific leadership only if we significantly strengthen universities, research institutions and advanced training, while enabling researchers to become innovators and entrepreneurs.
Finally, create the governance architecture for execution at scale. Biotech cuts across healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, environment, trade and finance; fragmented decision-making cannot deliver integrated outcomes. We propose an empowered committee on national bio-missions to drive coordination across government, supported by a national bio-data council, an investment and policy forum, and a dedicated bio-intellectual property mechanism to accelerate commercialisation.
Ultimately, India must begin to treat biotech as core national infrastructure—strategically as important to our future as digital public infrastructure or energy systems. We have already demonstrated that we can build world-class capabilities. Our next challenge is bigger: to move from building a biotech sector to building a biotech-powered economy—one that transforms industries, strengthens strategic resilience, creates crores of high-value jobs.
Gobardhan Das | Member, Niti Aayog
Debjani Ghosh | Distinguished Fellow, Niti Aayog
(Views are personal)
