New Delhi: As India closes 2025, its healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology sectors reflect a year marked by resilience, structural alignment, and accelerating adoption of technology.
From record-setting pharma exports and a more integrated biotech policy framework to the mainstreaming of AI in clinical workflows, diagnostics, mental health, and healthcare financing, the ecosystem has begun shifting from fragmented growth to system-level scale.
Industry leaders share their reflections on the milestones of the past year—and outline the priorities, opportunities, and expectations shaping India’s healthcare and life sciences trajectory in 2026 and beyond.
Sharing her thoughts, Annapurna Das, Vice President, General Manager, Takeda India stated, “India’s healthcare journey continues to progress with a sharper focus on patient access, prevention, and system resilience, supported by enabling government initiatives and stronger public–private collaboration. Policies such as Make in India and growing investments in digital health are helping build a more responsive and inclusive ecosystem that keeps patient needs at the centre. At Takeda, patient centricity guides every decision we make, from how we design access models and partnerships to how we deploy digital and AI-enabled solutions that support disease awareness, earlier diagnosis, and better long-term care. Our work in India is focused on ensuring that high-quality, science-driven therapies reach the patients who need them most, while strengthening the healthcare system around them. Looking ahead to 2026, we remain committed to deepening collaborations across the healthcare ecosystem, advancing responsible innovation, and supporting national health priorities with one clear objective: improving patient outcomes and quality of life in a sustainable and meaningful way.”
Bhavin Mehta, Whole-Time Director at Kilitch Drugs and Vice Chairman of Pharmexcil, noted that as 2025 comes to a close, India’s pharmaceutical export sector has shown notable resilience and forward momentum. “Industry exports crossed key milestones and opportunities emerged as several blockbuster drugs lost patent protection, a development expected to unlock significant growth prospects in global generics and speciality segments over the next few years. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we anticipate export expansion into new regulated and semi-regulated markets, supported by expanded product portfolios, deeper regulatory engagement and strategic diversification all of which reinforce India’s role as a trusted global supplier while driving healthy export growth.”
Reflecting on developments in biotechnology, Ankit Alok Bagaria, CEO and Founder of Loopworm, described 2025 as a pivotal year when India’s biotech ecosystem finally began operating as a connected whole rather than in silos. “The biotechnology sector in 2025 stood out as the year when India’s biotech sector finally moved away from working in separate boxes. It was a major turning point where national policy, specifically through the BioE3 framework, began treating biotechnology, large-scale manufacturing, and climate goals as parts of one single, connected story.. With the bioeconomy already around the 165 billion $ mark and aiming for 300 billion $ by 2030, this push toward high‑performance biomanufacturing has quietly changed founder behaviour towards planning multi-product platforms and large capacity, not just jumping from one short project to the next.”
Bagaria also highlighted that 2025 marked a turning point for R&D, as recombinant platforms began moving beyond conference conversations into practical deployment. Non-traditional production systems, including insect and microbial platforms, are gradually enabling India to manufacture more of its own enzymes and complex proteins for diagnostics, animal health, and research applications. Support from the RDI Fund and the Technology Development Board is expected to help startups bridge the critical “valley of death” between lab-scale validation and commercial products suitable for regulated global markets.
Looking ahead to 2026, the ecosystem expects the first bio-foundries and BioE3-backed clusters to become operational, with clear timelines, standards, and export orientation. If these developments align with supportive trade policies, Bagaria believes that “bio-made in India” could soon represent dependable global supply rather than aspirational intent.
Turning to digital health, Deepak Tuli, Co-founder and COO of Eka Care, said 2025 stood out as a transformative year for India’s HealthTech sector. “As 2025 draws to a close, India’s HealthTech sector stands out for the significant strides made in reshaping how care is delivered, documented, and experienced. The year witnessed the wider adoption of technology by doctors with the help of EkaScribe. Now, doctors’ documentation has become mainstream, which leads to the generation and linking of health records via Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Growing trust in digital platforms and deeper use of AI to reduce administrative burden on doctors has led to improved patient engagement. From remote clinics to urban hospitals, technology has played a critical role in making healthcare more accessible, transparent, and patient-centric.”
Tuli added further: “As 2025 concludes, Eka Care has enabled access to digital health records for over 100 million individuals across India, with over 110 million records digitized and available through secure, consent-driven mechanisms, including ABDM-linked systems where applicable. Its AI-powered tools, including EkaScribe and DocAssist, have helped reduce doctors’ scribing time by up to 70 percent, allowing clinicians to focus more meaningfully on patient care rather than paperwork. Initiatives such as Ekathon 2025, conducted with AWS, further strengthened the developer ecosystem by enabling the creation of ABDM-compliant applications such as zero-rejection insurance claims tools and multilingual voice assistants. The launch of KARMA, an open-source AI testing framework built on one of India’s largest health datasets, marked an important step in setting benchmarks for trust and reliability in clinical AI.”
“2025 has been a defining year for MedScore as India’s healthcare supply chain moved from intuition-led credit decisions to real-time financial intelligence. We saw firsthand how disciplined data can transform access to essential medicines, especially in markets where delayed payments and informal lending have silently constrained availability for years. Our work with distributors and retailers showed that stability in healthcare begins with stability in cash flows, and that a credible digital credit identity can be as powerful as inventory itself. This year reaffirmed our belief that financial transparency is the strongest lever for building an equitable, efficient, and resilient healthcare ecosystem. As we step into 2026, MedScore will continue strengthening this backbone by expanding our scoring infrastructure, deepening ERP integrations, and bringing structured credit discipline to every corner of India’s B2B pharma landscape.” said Mannuri Vamshi Krishna, Founder & CEO of MedScore.
“The mental health landscape in 2025 revealed a clear shift toward structured, preventive, and family-centric care. We at Lissun observed rising demand for early-stage interventions, especially for children and young adults, with challenges like anxiety, developmental delays, burnout, and parenting stress becoming increasingly prevalent. Families and caregivers played a much more active role in the therapeutic journey, resulting inbetter engagement, continuity, and measurable outcomes. There was also growing acceptance of technology-enabled support, including digital therapy management tools and virtual guidance platforms, allowing care to reach individuals beyond clinic walls. Looking toward 2026, the focus will intensify on personalised care pathways, preventive mental health, and hybrid models that blend digital and in-person support. Technology will continue to enhance early identification and progress tracking, but empathy, clinical judgment, and sustained human connection will remain at the core of effective mental health care,” said Dr. Preeti Singh, Chief Medical Officer, Lissun.
