![\"\"](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/10\/images-2026-10-05T181838.129_20261005181924_original_image_11.webp\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nIndia now races to sit among the world\u2019s top three biotechnology powers with a bioeconomy that aims to grow from USD 195.3 billion in 2025 to USD 2.6 trillion by 2047. On that path, the real question lies in the gap between capacity and resilience. From generics to vaccines to biosimilars, India manufactures at a scale few countries match. We have built capacity, but dependence has not disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 3 levels of dependence<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n- The products: Pharma PLI schemes attracted Rs 46,744 crore even as China’s share of India’s API, KSM and intermediate imports rose from 68.2 per cent in FY21 to 73.7 per ecnt in FY25. India’s molecular biology enzymes and reagents market, projected to pass USD 1.5 billion by 2033, still runs largely on imports.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The processes: Even when we make the product, we import what manufacturing requires. The global single-use bioreactor market is concentrated with just four companies.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The platforms: High-value protein manufacturing runs on proprietary cell lines whether it is mammalian or CHO. From milestone payments to royalties on net sales to cancellable licenses, even fairly standard commercial agreements limit the freedom to innovate. When the biology of production belongs to someone else, you pay rent on every unit you sell. Fixing one level without the others moves the dependence rather than removing it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Reducing imports means owning more of the stack<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nSubstituting imports at the product level alone would repeat the API story. Lasting self-reliance requires platforms India controls. DBT already applies this logic to microbes: its BioE3 Strain Resource Centre provides indigenous strains with freedom to operate, specifically to reduce reliance on imported strains. The same thinking must now reach the hosts that make complex proteins. The answer to platform concentration is not to pick one replacement. Biomanufacturing is a family of production systems, each with a different strength, and India should hold a portfolio of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India is already scaling microbial precision fermentation. Mammalian systems are still the benchmark for complex proteins but that\u2019s where the dependence runs deepest. Plant-based and cell-free systems have proven themselves in niches but are commercially early. Cell-free systems have crossed into commercial manufacturing, but cost, reproducibility and regulatory concerns still exist. Insect platforms offer an alternative here with an India advantage unlike any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silkworm as India’s advantage<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe silkworm has long been reared for silk, but it can also be used as a living bioreactor for recombinant protein production with both transgenic and transient processes.A 2026 review by Chinese researchers call it a promising chassis for synthetic biology citing its exceptional protein synthesis capability. Japan’s national agricultural research organisation already supplies silkworm-produced proteins as raw materials for diagnostic reagents and cosmetics, and is working towards biopharmaceutical proteins and oral vaccines. Silkworm-produced feline interferon has been on the market since 1994, as the world’s first antiviral drug for animal use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What makes this an Indian opportunity is the base underneath it. Japan has the science but has lost its farming base: only 146 sericulture farms remained there in 2023. China has scale and science, but its biotech strength is something that other nations are now trying to hedge against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India combines a large, living sericulture economy with the position of a trusted manufacturing partner. It is the world’s second-largest silk producer and also the reliable pharmacy of the world. Can that capacity transform an agricultural biological system into an industrial and pharmaceutical one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What India should build<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nOur goal must be to have the ability to design, develop and manufacture strategically important biological products on platforms and capabilities India owns, so that no single foreign platform becomes a single point of failure. For businesses and innovators, owning the platform means keeping the margin and the freedom to iterate, without paying rent on every unit. For the nation, it means that the next pandemic, export restriction or trade dispute does not decide what India can manufacture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policy has already started to move in this direction. Budget 2026-27’s Rs 10,000 crore Bio-Pharma SHAKTI scheme aims to strengthen domestic biologics production and reduce import dependence. India\u2019s opportunity is not only to build more capacity around conventional platforms, but an ecosystem where alternative platforms can scale. Enabling regulatory reference pathways also help in ensuring that proteins from new platforms can reach Indian diagnostic and research buyers without first having to prove themselves abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India’s strength has always been as the world’s supplier. It fueled the first phase of India’s biopharma ambition. The next phase has to answer a harder question: what happens when the world changes the terms of access to the biology we depend on?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Semiconductors, batteries and critical minerals all became national strategic priority when two things became hard to ignore: how much we depend on them and how production is concentrated in very few hands. Biotech is now following the same path. A diagnostic kit could be \u2018made in India\u2019 but complex proteins, antigens, antibodies, enzymes are still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":182407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"India\u2019s bioeconomy ambitions will depend not just on manufacturing at scale, but on building domestic control over the biological platforms and technologies that power production","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,17299,12276,12420,5796,5840,16171,12615,12417],"supplier":[5391],"class_list":["post-182393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biomanufacturing","tag-biopharmaceuticals","tag-bioreactor","tag-biotechnology","tag-enzymes","tag-fermentation","tag-microbes","tag-proteins","supplier-indian-department-for-biotechnology-dbt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182444,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393\/revisions\/182444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182393"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=182393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- \n
- The products: Pharma PLI schemes attracted Rs 46,744 crore even as China’s share of India’s API, KSM and intermediate imports rose from 68.2 per cent in FY21 to 73.7 per ecnt in FY25. India’s molecular biology enzymes and reagents market, projected to pass USD 1.5 billion by 2033, still runs largely on imports.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The processes: Even when we make the product, we import what manufacturing requires. The global single-use bioreactor market is concentrated with just four companies.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The platforms: High-value protein manufacturing runs on proprietary cell lines whether it is mammalian or CHO. From milestone payments to royalties on net sales to cancellable licenses, even fairly standard commercial agreements limit the freedom to innovate. When the biology of production belongs to someone else, you pay rent on every unit you sell. Fixing one level without the others moves the dependence rather than removing it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Reducing imports means owning more of the stack<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Substituting imports at the product level alone would repeat the API story. Lasting self-reliance requires platforms India controls. DBT already applies this logic to microbes: its BioE3 Strain Resource Centre provides indigenous strains with freedom to operate, specifically to reduce reliance on imported strains. The same thinking must now reach the hosts that make complex proteins. The answer to platform concentration is not to pick one replacement. Biomanufacturing is a family of production systems, each with a different strength, and India should hold a portfolio of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India is already scaling microbial precision fermentation. Mammalian systems are still the benchmark for complex proteins but that\u2019s where the dependence runs deepest. Plant-based and cell-free systems have proven themselves in niches but are commercially early. Cell-free systems have crossed into commercial manufacturing, but cost, reproducibility and regulatory concerns still exist. Insect platforms offer an alternative here with an India advantage unlike any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silkworm as India’s advantage<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The silkworm has long been reared for silk, but it can also be used as a living bioreactor for recombinant protein production with both transgenic and transient processes.A 2026 review by Chinese researchers call it a promising chassis for synthetic biology citing its exceptional protein synthesis capability. Japan’s national agricultural research organisation already supplies silkworm-produced proteins as raw materials for diagnostic reagents and cosmetics, and is working towards biopharmaceutical proteins and oral vaccines. Silkworm-produced feline interferon has been on the market since 1994, as the world’s first antiviral drug for animal use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What makes this an Indian opportunity is the base underneath it. Japan has the science but has lost its farming base: only 146 sericulture farms remained there in 2023. China has scale and science, but its biotech strength is something that other nations are now trying to hedge against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India combines a large, living sericulture economy with the position of a trusted manufacturing partner. It is the world’s second-largest silk producer and also the reliable pharmacy of the world. Can that capacity transform an agricultural biological system into an industrial and pharmaceutical one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What India should build<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Our goal must be to have the ability to design, develop and manufacture strategically important biological products on platforms and capabilities India owns, so that no single foreign platform becomes a single point of failure. For businesses and innovators, owning the platform means keeping the margin and the freedom to iterate, without paying rent on every unit. For the nation, it means that the next pandemic, export restriction or trade dispute does not decide what India can manufacture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policy has already started to move in this direction. Budget 2026-27’s Rs 10,000 crore Bio-Pharma SHAKTI scheme aims to strengthen domestic biologics production and reduce import dependence. India\u2019s opportunity is not only to build more capacity around conventional platforms, but an ecosystem where alternative platforms can scale. Enabling regulatory reference pathways also help in ensuring that proteins from new platforms can reach Indian diagnostic and research buyers without first having to prove themselves abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India’s strength has always been as the world’s supplier. It fueled the first phase of India’s biopharma ambition. The next phase has to answer a harder question: what happens when the world changes the terms of access to the biology we depend on?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Semiconductors, batteries and critical minerals all became national strategic priority when two things became hard to ignore: how much we depend on them and how production is concentrated in very few hands. Biotech is now following the same path. A diagnostic kit could be \u2018made in India\u2019 but complex proteins, antigens, antibodies, enzymes are still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":182407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"India\u2019s bioeconomy ambitions will depend not just on manufacturing at scale, but on building domestic control over the biological platforms and technologies that power production","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,17299,12276,12420,5796,5840,16171,12615,12417],"supplier":[5391],"class_list":["post-182393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biomanufacturing","tag-biopharmaceuticals","tag-bioreactor","tag-biotechnology","tag-enzymes","tag-fermentation","tag-microbes","tag-proteins","supplier-indian-department-for-biotechnology-dbt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182444,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182393\/revisions\/182444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182393"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=182393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}