Reimagining India’s Biotechnology Governance
| AUTHOR | Shambhavi Naik |
| DATE | July 27, 2026 |
| CATEGORIES | Advanced Biology Bioeconomy |
NITI Aayog’s Roadmap for Building India as a Leading BioEconomy Powerhouse by 2035 is the most comprehensive articulation yet of India’s biotechnology ambitions. Its central premise — that biology will do for matter what computing did for information — is both timely and persuasive. The proposed BioMissions, from GeneIndia for affordable cell and gene therapies to AgriBio 2.0 for climate-resilient crops, show a clear recognition of where global biotechnology is headed. India’s growth from a $10 billion bioeconomy in 2014 to $195.3 billion in 2025 also demonstrates that this ambition is not speculative. It builds on real momentum.
The roadmap is therefore an important document and proposes several forward-looking measures. The ₹50,000 crore BioEconomy Growth Fund is the largest dedicated biotech funding commitment India has considered. The proposal to reform Section 3(d) of the Patents Act for biological innovations is a significant step. The regulatory sandbox for advanced biotechnologies, allowing gene therapies, synthetic biology products, and AI-designed biologics to be tested under modified approval conditions, would be transformative if implemented. India has many strengths and genuine capability in the biotechnology sector to build on. But to transform that into a globally competitive bioeconomy will require more than funding and regulatory innovation.
The first challenge is feedstock economics. India’s bioeconomy depends on biological raw materials — sugarcane, maize, agricultural residues, marine biomass, animal waste, microbes, and other renewable inputs. Yet many of these inputs are shaped by agricultural price-support systems rather than market pricing. Sugarcane is the clearest example. A bioplastics manufacturer in Maharashtra cannot compete with a Thai or Brazilian producer if Indian sugarcane costs are structurally higher because of administered pricing.
This does not mean farmer welfare should be weakened. It means India needs to separate farmer-support policy from industrial feedstock policy. If sugarcane, maize, or biomass are to become inputs for a larger bioeconomy, they will need mechanisms for dedicated industrial-grade cultivation, transparent pricing for non-food and non-sugar uses, import pathways where necessary, and incentives for low-cost agricultural residues and marine biomass. Without such measures, India may build biomanufacturing capacity that remains uncompetitive because its primary inputs are too expensive or unreliable.
The second challenge is market creation. The roadmap gives substantial attention to R&D, talent, infrastructure, and missions, but less to the question of who will buy India’s bio-products and under what conditions. This matters because biotechnology products rarely scale on scientific merit alone. Gene therapies that cost millions of dollars in the United States are not automatically viable in India. Bioplastics must compete with petrochemical plastics that are more polluting but cheaper to make.
If India wants $100 billion in biotech exports by 2035, it needs an export and market-shaping strategy. This could include preferential procurement for bio-based products, sustainability-linked public purchasing, standards for bio-based materials, trade partnerships for green industrial products and offtake guarantees for strategic bio-inputs.
The third challenge is the role of the private sector. The roadmap recognises industry, venture capital, and startups as important stakeholders. But India’s next biotechnology leap will require them to be treated not only as participants in government-led missions, but as the primary engines of commercialisation. India now has a large biotech startup base, but the harder task is to help promising firms cross the valley between early innovation and industrial scale. The Series A/B funding crunch, limited pilot-scale infrastructure, weak procurement pathways, and uncertain regulation all constrain growth.
The proposed ₹50,000 crore BioEconomy Growth Fund could be transformative in this, but only if it is designed to crowd in private capital rather than substitute for it. India’s biotechnology firms need a deeper risk-capital ecosystem that understands long development timelines, regulatory uncertainty, scientific diligence, and manufacturing scale-up. Government can play a catalytic role by anchoring blended-finance vehicles, offering first-loss guarantees, creating co-investment platforms, and using milestone-based grants to reduce early technical risk. It could also build capacity among Indian venture funds, family offices, banks, and institutional investors to evaluate biotechnology opportunities. The role of government should be to clear the path for private funding — by reducing regulatory uncertainty, de-risking early stages, building shared infrastructure, and creating credible demand signals — so that private capital can finance the companies that will actually build the bioeconomy.
The likely impact of India realising its bioeconomy potential will be transformative for India’s economy and national security – yet its governance remains fragmented. The roadmap proposes an empowered committee to coordinate across ministries. That is useful, especially in a landscape where DBT, BIRAC, CDSCO, GEAC, ICAR, FSSAI, MoEFCC, MoES, and state governments all shape different parts of the sector. But committees rarely have the permanence, budgetary authority, and political accountability required to govern a sector projected to become one of India’s major economic engines.
India created the Department of Biotechnology in 1986, when the sector was still nascent. Today, the bioeconomy contributes significantly to GDP and is expected to become even more central to health, food, energy, climate resilience, manufacturing, and national security. At this scale, biotechnology governance needs to think beyond coordination, but have the power to operate proactively. It is perhaps more prudent to consider a bioeconomy ministry that can own the various outcomes envisioned under BioE3 and this roadmap.
India has made such transitions before. Electronics and information technology gained institutional weight as the digital economy became central to national growth. Renewable energy received dedicated ministerial focus as clean energy became a strategic priority. Biotechnology is approaching a similar inflection point. It is too large, too cross-cutting, and too strategic to be governed only through dispersed departments and inter-ministerial committees.
The NITI Aayog roadmap is right that India has a major opportunity. Realising it will requires missions and infrastructure. But India must also fix feedstock economics, create markets, and crowd in private capital. The biological century will reward countries that combine scientific capability with governance imagination. India’s biotech ambition now needs that next step.