The Future of Biotechnology in India

Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister, Union Minister, Science and Technology, Earth Science, shares with BioSpecturm the prospects and plans for the biotechnology and medical technology sectors.

Q: Does the growth of biotech industry in recent years match up to your forecast? How does the future of biotech in this country look?

A: India has today emerged as the fastest growing large economy in 2015 and looks forward to a growth of 8-10 percent during the next decade. The biotechnology industry has grown at a CAGR of 20 percent and in the next decade, we expect this to rise to 30 percent to achieve the ambitious target of USD100 billion by 2025. The Indian biotech industry is today geared up to meet the various challenges, and the government’s Make in India and Start-up India missions are contributing greatly to this. The Make in India mission aims to increase growth in the manufacturing sector by 12-14 percent and create 100 million additional jobs by 2022. Biotechnology is one of the key identified growth sectors.

Q: Critics from the industry feel that the regulatory regime is a big dampener. Do you see any change in the scenario over time?

A: Regulation is an important component contributing to the biotechnology sector. In the last two years, special effort has been made to ensure that the regulatory system is made more transparent and is at par with global best practices. Technically, the regulator has been strengthened and all effort has been made to reduce the timeline for decision making.

Q: Three years ago DBT had said that diagnostics will be the next big focus of DBT. What are the steps taken in that direction? Which are the other priority areas?