The Telangana has been widely recognized as a leader in India and Asia in life sciences innovation and manufacturing. Over the last four years since the formation of new State, the sector has been buzzing with activities – be it the entry of marquee global names and new players like Ferring Pharma, Chemo, GSK, Syngene, Slayback Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, etc or the expansion of the existing marquee companies such as Novartis, Biological E, Laurus Labs, Pulse Pharma, among others.
In tune with the Telangana Government’s commitment to provide transparent governance and to inform the people about the benefits being reaped out of its proactive policies, it has been a regular Endeavor of various departments to periodically evaluate sectoral progress. Such evaluation done for the Life Sciences sector through an analysis of data from various sources showed notable findings.
It is interesting to note that since January 2015 – time of introduction of the revolutionary TS-iPASS about 700 investment proposals in Life Sciences sector have been approved by the State Government, including more than 100 R&D proposals. Thanks to the proactive and business-friendly attitude of the Government, 80% of these projects have already commenced project execution. These envisage about 20,000 high value R&D jobs and around 50,000 manufacturing jobs in the state. The past four years have also seen the State’s life sciences sector being a magnet for investments of about INR 10,222 crores, including INR 3000 crores in R&D alone.
The Chief Minister KCR, Industries and Commerce Minister KT Rama Rao ensured that Telangana is positioned well as a leader in life sciences in the global map. From personally meeting with almost all of the top global industry leaders, to being invited to deliver a keynote address at the global medtech event – AdvaMed conference (a unique distinction as the keynote addresses in the earlier years were delivered by the likes of Former Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton) to championing the cause of the Industry to bring about a nurturing policy environment, he left no stone un-turned.
Another star performer in the sector has been exports. Analysis shows that the contribution of Life Sciences sector to the overall product export value from Telangana is a whopping 36%, which has almost doubled during the last four years. It is to the credit of the Government that the Life Sciences product exports in the state grew at 2.41 times over the last four years, as compared to the national average of 1.18 times.
After a brief review of the sector with the Principal Secretary (ITE&C) Jayesh Ranjan and Director Life Sciences and Pharma Shakthi Nagappan, Industries and Commerce Minister K.T.Rama Rao said, “We are happy that our policies are bearing fruit. These facts enthuse us and drive us to work even harder. Our government is dedicated to foster the growth of the life sciences sector, which has added value to the lives of the people and brought laurels to the State and the country. We are dreaming big – we want to double the size of the sector to USD 100 bn dollars. We have traversed a successful path till now and will leave no stone unturned to add on to these positives.” With the focus on cluster development (Hyderabad Pharma City, Genome Valley 2.0 and the Medical Devices Park), along with various initiatives of the Government including Life Sciences Vision 2030, B-Hub, BioAsia, Life Sciences Infrastructure Fund, Innovation Fund, Ease of Doing Business, Skilling Initiatives, and the Government’s commitment to extend a red carpet to industry, the sector is poised to become the bejeweled crown for a Golden Telangana.
The State Government’s focus has not just been on nurturing industries, but also on skill training and promotion of innovation. Government has partnered with US Pharmacopeia for setting up a training institute for university graduates and pharma professionals addressing the skill gap on regulatory and data. A number of other skilling programmes focused on Vaccines, Biopharma, pharmaceutical manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, among others are under finalization.
