New Delhi, September 6: India must build resilient and globally integrated healthcare supply chains and move beyond its success in generic medicines towards greater research and innovation, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at the Bharat Health Global Expo 2026 in New Delhi on Sunday.
Goyal, addressing industry leaders at the expo, said India has established itself as the ‘pharmacy of the world’ but now needs to aim for a bigger role built on research, new molecules and biotechnology rather than generics alone. He was joined at the event by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry and Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada and Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal.
Call for supply chain resilience
Goyal said the world was increasingly wary of supply chains concentrated in one or two locations, or of chains that could be weaponised. He pointed out that India had lost ground over the years in active pharmaceutical ingredients and key starting materials, and said the time had come to rebuild resilience in the sector.
That did not mean turning inward, he clarified. India would continue to import products where necessary, but these needed to come from multiple countries and companies so that no single supplier could hold the industry to ransom. He added that pooling India’s demand could reveal several imported products with real potential for domestic manufacture.
Goyal noted that competition for investment was no longer confined to developing economies, with the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Singapore and European countries all vying to attract capital. Indian pharmaceutical companies, he said, might also need to invest abroad, including in African countries, for local value addition and last-mile delivery.
Push for research and biosimilars
On innovation, Goyal said India’s generics success could not be the end point if the country wants to become developed by 2047. He called on the industry to pursue more research, develop and patent its own products, and make greater use of schemes such as the Research and Development Innovation Fund. New molecules, biosimilars and biotechnology, he said, should be the sector’s next frontier.
He also said India needed regulatory mechanisms attractive enough to draw investment in clinical trials and product development, and suggested regulators study practices in more developed countries to work towards greater regulatory convergence.
Medical value travel and infrastructure
Goyal said close to USD 8 billion was already being spent on medical value travel to India, helped by modern hospitals and skilled doctors, nurses and technicians, and called for the segment to be pursued on a mission-mode basis. He said bodies such as the Services Export Promotion Council were already working with industry chambers CII and FICCI on this, and that government schemes including the India Brand Equity Fund could support promotional efforts if industry came forward with proposals.
On infrastructure, he said bulk drug parks were coming up in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, and that 100 new industrial parks being developed could carve out dedicated space for pharmaceutical and healthcare units. On medical devices, he said India needed to move from assembling imported components to manufacturing them domestically, with MSMEs supporting the indigenisation drive and larger firms building scale.
Goyal also flagged Ayush, saying India still exports raw herbs rather than finished, scientifically validated products, and needed to change that to win wider global acceptance.
Trade deals opening more markets
Goyal said trade agreements were opening up new markets for Indian industry, with roughly two-thirds of the global market already offering preferential access and another 8 to 10 agreements under negotiation that could take this to around 75 per cent of global trade. He said free trade agreements signed before 2014 had given India access to markets worth a combined USD 10 trillion in GDP, whereas nine agreements referenced by Prasada during the event covered 38 developed countries and a combined GDP of USD 60 trillion.
He said Bharat Health Global Expo, which organisers hope will eventually draw participation from around 50 countries and roughly 1,000 delegates, could be widened in future editions to include country pavilions, allowing foreign firms to exhibit alongside Indian companies. Goyal said India’s healthcare sector had already proved its reliability during the Covid-19 pandemic and needed to build on that trust, describing the long-term goal as making India the ‘health stack for the globe’ in support of the government’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.