India Must Move From ‘Pharmacy Of The World’ To ‘Laboratory Of The World’: Anupriya Patel
India must move beyond its identity as the “Pharmacy of the World” and emerge as the “Laboratory of the World”, driven by research, innovation and emerging technologies, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilizers Anupriya Patel said on Saturday.
Addressing the third edition of the IIMA Healthcare Summit 2026 on the theme “Advancing AI in Healthcare” at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), Patel highlighted India’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the country’s pharmaceutical industry ensured uninterrupted supplies of vaccines and essential medical products to more than 200 countries.
She said India’s COVID-19 vaccination programme administered over 2.2 billion doses.
Highlighting the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in healthcare, Patel said AI could accelerate drug discovery, enable personalised treatment and strengthen healthcare delivery through improved screening, clinical decision-making and disease surveillance.
However, she stressed that the adoption of AI must be safe, responsible and human-centred, with strong safeguards for patient privacy.
“AI must complement, rather than replace, human clinical judgement,” she said, calling for greater collaboration among the government, academia, healthcare institutions, startups and industry to move from pilot projects to population-level implementation.
Patel said Centres of Excellence for AI in healthcare have been established at AIIMS New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and AIIMS Rishikesh.
The Minister also highlighted the government’s ₹5,000 crore Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma-MedTech Sector (PRIP) scheme, aimed at strengthening research and industry-academia collaboration and supporting India’s transition towards innovation-led growth.
She further referred to the ₹10,000 crore Biopharma SHAKTI mission, announced in the Union Budget, which seeks to strengthen capabilities in biologics and biosimilars, develop skilled manpower and enhance regulatory and clinical trial capacities to support the domestic biopharmaceutical ecosystem.
Department of Pharmaceuticals Secretary Manoj Joshi highlighted the growing use of AI across the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
He said large pharmaceutical companies were increasingly deploying AI in areas such as production, human resources, marketing, distribution and inventory management, while startups, particularly in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, were using the technology for drug discovery.
According to Joshi, AI is helping startups identify and shortlist potential drug candidates more quickly, significantly reducing the time required for the drug discovery process.
He also highlighted challenges related to access to capital, software licensing, computing capacity and specialised talent, and said the government was working to address these through initiatives such as the National Biopharma Mission and the IndiaAI Mission.
Joshi said the government was also working towards providing substantial support to eligible startups for software licensing and operational costs to strengthen AI-led innovation in the pharmaceutical sector.
He underlined the importance of making healthcare and genetic data accessible to Indian innovators with appropriate safeguards and highlighted the potential of AI in clinical trials, precision medicine and the digitisation of patient-level healthcare data.
Department of Health and Family Welfare Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said the government was building a robust digital health ecosystem while promoting the responsible and evidence-based use of AI.
She said the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) was creating an interoperable, open-standards-based digital health ecosystem, with more than 96 crore ABHA IDs and over 1,000 crore health records digitally linked across healthcare facilities and professionals.
Srivastava also highlighted AI-enabled applications for the early detection of diseases such as tuberculosis and diabetic retinopathy, as well as AI-supported clinical decision-making through eSanjeevani, which has benefited more than 20 crore patients.
She emphasised the importance of privacy, responsible AI, evidence-based innovation and collaboration among the government, academia, startups and industry. She also referred to the IndiaAI Mission and AIKosh, aimed at democratising access to datasets, AI models and toolkits.
IIMA Board of Governors Chairman and Zydus Lifesciences Chairman Pankaj Patel spoke about the potential of AI across the healthcare value chain, from drug discovery to patient care. He said the technology could accelerate the identification of potential drug candidates, support clinical trial design and patient recruitment, and help researchers identify failures at an earlier stage.
During the event, India Pharma Archives, a digital initiative of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) in collaboration with IIM Ahmedabad Archives, was unveiled. The initiative seeks to document and preserve the evolution of India’s pharmaceutical industry through oral histories, archival documents, photographs and rare media.
A book chronicling India’s COVID-19 vaccine development and the country’s scientific, pharmaceutical and institutional response to the global health crisis was also released.
The IIMA Healthcare Summit 2026 brought together policymakers and stakeholders from the healthcare industry and academia to deliberate on “Advancing AI in Healthcare”, in line with the government’s IndiaAI Mission and its vision of a healthy and developed India by 2047.
