“Indian manufacturers account for roughly 20% of the global supply of generic medications by volume. But artificial intelligence could shift India's role from producing drugs to discovering them.
Modern pharmaceutical development can be simplified into three linked tasks. First is identifying the genetic mutations and pathways that drive disease. Second is translating those insights into a therapeutic molecule -- the pill or infusion a patient eventually receives. Third is proving safety and efficacy through clinical trials, which consume the majority of time and capital. Moving from target to approved medicine often takes close to a decade.
India holds a distinct advantage in the first stage. Its vast, diverse population includes thousands of communities shaped by centuries of endogamy, or marriage within groups. This has enriched rare functional variation, including recessive disorders and homozygous loss-of-function mutations, or "human knockouts." That means someone inherits two copies of an inactivated gene. If such a person remains healthy -- or protected from disease -- it suggests that targeting the gene may be both effective and safe.
In endogamous populations, such variants can occur 100 to 1,000 times as often as in more outbred populations, shortening the time and cost required to find them. While specific variants may be enriched in particular Indian subpopulations, the biological pathways they illuminate are universal. A protective mutation identified in South Asia may point to mechanisms driving cardiovascular or metabolic disease worldwide.
The second stage is different. Translating genetic insight into a drug candidate requires capabilities in chemistry and biologics engineering long concentrated in the U.S. and Europe. India's opportunity is partnership -- combining Western translational depth with Indian-scale discovery.
Clinical trials are usually the most expensive part of drug development. Late-stage Phase III programs can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. AI could improve patient matching, optimize trial design, and automate documentation. With 1.4 billion people, India could support clinical research at unmatched scale.
India holds a second structural advantage: the world's largest concentration of software engineers. Its digital-payment infrastructure now processes more than 20 billion transactions a month through the Unified Payments Interface. Applying that engineering strength to biology could allow India to leapfrog from manufacturing generics to discovering cures.
Discovery is built on institutions. India needs translational laboratories, accredited biobanks, adaptive trial networks and globally trusted evidence systems. The evolving EU-India Trade and Technology Council framework has made pharmaceutical and biotechnology collaboration a priority.
India has population-scale genetics, computing talent, clinical diversity and advancing AI tools. If it builds the institutions to match these assets, its next great export will be manufactured drugs and discovery.
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Mr. Saxena is CEO of Vedanta Capital, a venture capital firm investing in biotechnology and AI.” [1]
1. India's Boundless Biotech Potential. Saxena, Parag. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 13 Mar 2026: A13.
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