India's BioEconomy Roadmap 2035

NITI Aayog recently published the ‘Roadmap for Building India as a Leading BioEconomy Powerhouse by 2035’ report outlining the vision to grow India’s BioEconomy to $691 billion by 2035 and $2.6 trillion by 2047. The report proposes six new biomissions GeneIndia, AgriBio 2.0, BioX Foundry, One Health Grid, Marine Biotechnology and BioPharmaNext. The key message from the report is this- while the potential for scaling India’s bioeconomy is huge, leadership won't come from research excellence alone - it will go to whoever best integrates capital, regulation, skills, data, and manufacturing capacity, and India's window to move first is narrowing.

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A converge of technology breakthroughs and market opportunity for India, but challenges exist. 

Just as computing transformed the global economy from the 1970s onward, biology powered by genome editing, synthetic biology, AI-assisted protein design, and precision fermentation is now becoming a general-purpose platform for manufacturing medicine, food, materials, and fuel. India enters this race with real strengths: the world's largest vaccine manufacturing base, a globally trusted generics and biosimilars industry, over 10,000 biotech startups (up from just 50 a decade ago), more than 700 USFDA-approved manufacturing plants, and a pandemic-era track record of developing five COVID vaccines from scratch. The sector already employs 3.3 million professionals. Unfortunately, the sector has had its challenges. While early stage venture capital funding has increased for biotech startups, mid to late stage funding has been muted. Regulatory approval processes for new technologies such as gene therapy, agri-bio inputs, diagnostic devices is still fragmented and under multiple agencies. There is limited GMP-grade biofoundry infrastructure, and heavy dependence on imported raw materials and enzymes. 

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Six industries, six missions driven by adoption of new technologies

The GeneIndia mission led by ICMR and DBT will drive the commercialization of affordable cell and gene therapies and precision diagnostics for some of the genetic diseases found in India including sickle cell anemia, beta thalassemia as well as solid tumors and neurological disorders. Access and availability to novel delivery systems such as lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and viral vectors, gene editing technologies such as CRISPR-CAS, shRNA-Mediated Gene Silencing and novel scale up and processing technologies can help in developing novel cell and gene therapies.

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AgriBio 2.0 will push the commercialization of novel agricultural inputs such as biofertilizers, biostimulants, biopesticides as well as novel climate resilient seeds. The modern tools such as CRISPR-based gene editing, genomic selection, and molecular breeding can now help develop novel products such as si-RNA based biopesticides, whole cell biostimulants for improving nitrogen fixation, improving crop yields and reducing GHG emissions.

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BioPharmaNext is aimed towards developing the next generation of biologics and biosimilars by adopting AI driven foundational models and drug discovery and research tools. The vision is to become the global hub for next generation biologics including antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), bispecific and trispecific antibodies, mRNA therapeutics and others.

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Similarly, marine biotechnology innovations in seaweed and microalgae are being encouraged to develop packaging solutions, antioxidants and biostimulants which can also promote the local seaweed growers community. The BioX foundry and One Health Grid are targeted towards building the infrastructure, surveillance and biosecurity regulations needed to scale and commercialize innovations in the biotech industry.

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Commercialization and scale up is the next frontier, needing execution supported by infrastructure, regulations and private investments.

We at Ankur have supported commercialization of deep science technology innovations in biotechnology over the last decade by investing into startups such as String Bio, Myoworks, D-Nome, Piatrika Biosystems developing novel technologies in agri biotech, alternate materials, molecular diagnostics, specialty chemicals and alternate food systems. We have worked closely with all the other stakeholders in the market including universities, incubators, industries, subject matter experts and others. We believe while there have been some early successes in the biotech startup industry with a few startups scaling up their technology through private venture capital investments, more needs to be done. Large scale investments need to be made in developing biomanufacturing infrastructure for non-pharma products, regulatory policies need to be simplified and streamlined for novel drug development, diagnostics and medical devices. Large pharma and other biotech industry leaders need to participate more in supporting deep science technology innovations. Private investors will follow as the ecosystem matures and builds the rails for success. 

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This report is a step in the right direction- ₹50,000 crore ($5.8 billion) BioEconomy Growth Fund (2026–2035), as part of India's broader Research, Development & Innovation Scheme (RDI), aimed squarely at the "valley of death" between lab prototypes and commercial-scale manufacturing, PLI style manufacturing incentives for biomanufacturing, regulatory reforms including a regulatory sandbox for frontier modalities (cell/gene therapies, synthetic biology, AI-designed drugs), modernization of the CDSCO to align with FDA/EMA-level standards, and patent law updates for biotech inventions. Finally, all the technologies will be built upon local talent development. The report calls for revitalized undergraduate and graduate biotech education, expanded PhD and postdoctoral fellowships benchmarked internationally, frontier training in bioinformatics and AI-driven biology, re-entry pathways for diaspora scientists, and stronger startup incubation and mentorship support.

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