Pharma & lifesciences GCCs cut drug timelines by 1–2 years and drive a 5% decline in R&D-to-launch costs: Report

New Delhi: India’s Pharma and Life Sciences Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are delivering measurable gains across the drug development value chain, accelerating time‑to‑market and reductions in end‑to‑end R&D costs, according to the report “Making it matter: How GCCs transform capability into end‑patient impact,” developed in collaboration with KPMG in India and UnearthIQ.

End-to-end adoption of AI, automation, and advanced analytics across the value chain is compressing drug development timelines from 10–15 years to 9–13 years. The efficiency gains free R&D teams from routine tasks, redirecting talent toward bold, high-impact innovation. As a result, R&D-to-launch costs have declined from 20–30% to 15–25%.

Across R&D and preclinical development, GCCs are accelerating target identification, protein modelling, and compound screening, cutting early-stage timelines by 5–6 years. In clinical trials, AI-driven patient recruitment, trial design, and real-time analytics are shortening development cycles by 4–6 years and improving success rates.

Shalini Pillay. Partner and India Leader – Global Capability Centres, KPMG in India, said, “The next phase of evolution of the GCC model, as it moves up the maturity curve, will be driven by the business context and core sector/domain knowledge.  Leveraging emerging technologies & GenAI to impact the core sectoral challenges is what will drive significant outcomes and truly unlock the RoI. The GCCs, technology and innovation hubs focused on streamlining the underlying data structures, integrating technology across the core value chain, investing in techno-functional capabilities, and leveraging the wider ecosystem to fuel research and innovation, will pave the way forward for global Healthcare and Life Sciences players.”

India today hosts 150+ Healthcare and Life Sciences GCCs, spanning R&D centres, Global Business Services, Global Shared Services, and Centres of Excellence, and employing over 300,0001 professionals.

The landscape is dominated by GCCs in pharma (30–35%), life sciences (20–25%), and medical devices (20–25%), with a growing presence across healthcare and health-tech (20%), providers (10%), and payers (5%).

Healthcare and MedTech GCCs in India are also undergoing a sharp shift, from traditional engineering support to innovation-led product development hubs. By embedding AI platforms, digital engineering, and regulatory automation across R&D, design, manufacturing, and compliance, these centres are compressing medical device development cycles from 5–8 years to 3–5 years while improving software-led margin leverage from 10–15% to 18–25%.This transformation is redefining the role of GCCs in healthcare innovation.

“The healthcare and life sciences GCC ecosystem in India is evolving beyond the traditional maturity model. With enterprises, technology partners, and talent coming together, both established and new GCCs are adopting a core-first approach, building capabilities across discovery, clinical, and digital health to become integral innovation hubs shaping global patient outcomes,” said Gaurav Vasu and Shail Maniar, Co-founders of UnearthIQ.

Beyond the GCCs themselves, the wider ecosystem comprising enterprises, technology partners, academia, startups, and supportive state initiatives is playing a pivotal role in nurturing innovation, enabling specialized expertise, and creating the collaborative environment that allows GCCs to thrive and deliver global impact.

Kartik Ramakrishnan, Partner and KPMG in India leader for Healthcare and Life Sciences GCC, highlights: “The thriving business ecosystem supporting GCCs plays a proud role in enabling expertise and talent for GCCs in areas like Data Analytics, Taxation, Risk, Regulatory compliance, Technology, Operations support, and even R&D, among others. In addition, startups, Academia, and other platforms enabled by local state governments and private players infuse fresh thinking, talent, and innovation. But what truly sets the GCC ecosystem apart is its collaborative and inclusive nature – GCCs actively encourage newcomers and openly share their experiences. This openness significantly enriches the entire ecosystem in unique and valuable ways.”

As these centres move beyond traditional support functions to assume end-to-end responsibility across the healthcare value chain, their impact is being felt most clearly by patients. Faster access to therapies, improved clinical trial outcomes, and lower development costs are enabling more affordable medicines and earlier breakthroughs in oncology, rare diseases, and chronic conditions – reinforcing India’s GCCs as global health accelerators that are shaping the future of equitable and innovation-led healthcare.

The report was released at BioAsia 2026 in Hyderabad, Asia’s premier life sciences and health-tech forum held on February 17–18.