The Time for a US-India Partnership in Biotech is Now

DEVELOPING new drugs is a challenging endeavour. It is a process that requires years of basic research to characterise new therapeutic molecules and validate them in clinical settings. The unpredictability of biology and physiological variations among individuals makes the successful introduction of a new therapy into the market a daunting task.

- Arman Sharma & Amit Kapoor

Large firms in the United States (US), despite incurring billions of dollars in this process, have a success rate of less than ten per cent. Especially as the regulatory environment in the US tightens and less capital is available for new biotech ventures, US biotech companies must seriously re-evaluate their approach to testing new therapeutics. While US firms may have a competitive edge in the scientific development of new therapeutics, the principal driver of costs and the most common point of failure is the real-world, clinical testing of these products. This pain point is likely to be exacerbated in the coming years due to the shift towards biologics – a type of drug made using living organisms – which are far less predictable in terms of their expected effectiveness.

Enter India. Over the last few decades, India’s aggregate population has grown and so has the diversity of prevalent diseases within the population. Its infrastructure, specifically digital infrastructure and its penetration to the individual level, has witnessed a phenomenal growth. Additionally, India’s pharmaceutical manufacturing capability has also expanded, with the country often called ‘the world’s pharmacy’. With India’s rise as a global powerhouse in healthcare and increasing domestic pressures on the US biotech industry, a US-India partnership in therapeutics development would be hugely beneficial for healthcare worldwide.