KTR says Hyderabad to be HealthTech Mecca, sets life-sciences ecosystem target at $ 250bn by 2030

HYDERABAD: Telangana Minister for Industries & IT K T Rama Rao has exuded confidence that life sciences, pharma and healthcare development ecosystem would achieve the target of USD 100 billion by 2025 itself, against the 2030-deadline set by themselves. “I envision that by 2030, the value of the lifesciences ecosystem will cross $ 250 bn,” he said.

Inaugurating the BioAsia conference here on Friday, the minister said: “We will work on a program to position Hyderabad as the HEALTH-TECH Mecca of the world. Through our various incubator programs, and access to deep computing resources, we will actively support startups that drive the convergence of Healthcare and Technology. I am confident that we will have a few global HEALTH-TECH unicorns that will emerge out of this program.

“We are working on establishing Biopharma Hub (B-hub), which is a first-of-its-kind Growth-Phase Center and Biopharma Scale-up Manufacturing facility in India,” said the minister.

KTR went on to add: “If you remember, we had set out a vision of doubling our ecosystem value to $100 billion by 2030. A lot of people felt that it was too ambitious. I am pleased to announce that the ecosystem value has already touched USD 80 bn in 2022. This represents a phenomenal ecosystem value growth in Telangana at a mindboggling 23 percent over the last two years compared to the national average of about 14 percent.”

He said that the BioAsia attracted healthcare, pharma, and Lifesciences leaders from more than 100 countries.

The theme of this year’s BioAsia conference is “Advancing for ONE: Shaping the next generation of humanized healthcare.”

Hyderabad was the only city in the country that had “an ever-growing Genome Valley, an expanding MedTech Park and an upcoming Pharma City, which will be the world’s largest.” KTR said that new investment of over USD 3 billion could be attracted over the last seven years, resulting 4.50 lakh jobs.

He said: “Our ultimate aim is to make Telangana, the knowledge capital of the world’s life sciences industry. A key component of this is the growth of the life-sciences services sector. We already serve more than 1,000 life-sciences companies globally, including the top 10 pharma companies, in their innovation journey.”

Stating that there were four pillars that would help achieve the audacious $ 250-bn target is audacious target, KTR listed them as complex manufacturing scale, R&D and Innovation, Building High-end, cross value chain global capability centres (GCCs), and Convergence of healthcare and technology.

Complex manufacturing at scale

“Telangana contributes 40 percent of India’s Pharma production and is home to more than 1,000 Life Sciences companies and we are growing. We are the only region in the world to have more than 200 FDA-approved sites for pharmaceutical manufacturing which produce both innovator and generic medicines. Our capability will be further strengthened with the launch of Hyderabad Pharma City, which is the world’s largest and sustainable integrated pharma park. While we are continuing to build on our strengths in small molecules, we have also started to make giant leap towards advanced therapeutic modalities.

“Hyderabad has been leading biological production in the country with its key players like Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Biological E, Bharat Biotech, Shantha Biotech, Aurobindo, Hetero, Gland Pharma and Virchow Biotech.

“We are also making investments in the Cell and Gene Therapy space and are working towards establishing an Institute of Curative Medicine in Hyderabad with the aim to provide affordable development and commercialization of the new age curative therapies (particularly cell and gene therapy) for disease pertinent to India.”

R&D and Innovation

“Hyderabad has become home to the largest number of Indian and multinational pharmaceutical research service organisations offering services ranging from medicinal chemistry, discovery biology, pre-clinical, clinical, drug development and clinical trial product manufacturing. Today, almost every big pharma company and over a hundred biotech firms use these contract research organisations’ (CROs) services.”

Building High-end, cross value chain GCCs

“Hyderabad is emerging as a most preferred location for life sciences focused Global capability centers (GCCs). Today, I am delighted to welcome leading companies like BMS and Sanofi to the vibrant ecosystem of Hyderabad, as they will now be joining the illustrious list of companies like Novartis, Bayer, Medtronic, Thermofisher, Schrodinger etc. These GCCs drive and support key R&D, analytics, innovation and engineering teams globally. Over the next five years we will position Hyderabad as a high-end GCC destination for the world’s leading life sciences companies.”

Convergence of healthcare and technology

“The use of technology and the advent of AI will drive transformative changes in the way diseases are diagnosed and healthcare is delivered to patients across the world. If we combine the engineering and product talent we have at large technology companies in Hyderabad, along with the deep life sciences domain knowledge, the possibilities are endless.

commend the participation and commitment of various life sciences and pharma stakeholders. It has always been a privilege to be among you and participate in deliberations and discussions, interactive and enlightening sessions, all directed and driven towards intensifying collaborations, and working towards innovations in healthcare at scale.”