Telangana unveils a five-year plan aiming to attract $25 billion in investment and create 500,000 jobs by 2030, transforming itself into India’s leading centre for high-value research and bio-manufacturing in the evolving global pharma landscape.
Telangana has set out an ambitious bid to turn itself into India’s leading life sciences innovation hub, backing a five-year plan that aims to draw $25 billion in investment and create 500,000 jobs by 2030. The state’s new policy, unveiled earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, is designed to move the region beyond large-scale drug manufacturing towards higher-value research, advanced therapies and bio-manufacturing, according to reports from the Economic Times and Business Standard.
That ambition was echoed in Hyderabad at the launch event for CPHI & PMEC India 2026, where industry leaders framed the next phase of Indian pharma as a race to deepen capability rather than simply expand output. Telangana officials said the state already accounts for nearly 40% of India’s pharmaceutical production and about one-third of global vaccine output, giving it a strong base from which to broaden into biologics, biosimilars, cell and gene therapies and other advanced fields.
Sarvesh Singh, who leads life sciences and pharma for the Telangana government, said the state’s focus is now on climbing the value chain. He pointed to a growing research base, global capability centres, a large talent pool and more than 20 life sciences incubators supporting over 1,000 start-ups. The policy also leans heavily on partnerships, with the state seeking closer links with companies and research institutions in the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China, while using artificial intelligence and other digital tools to improve research and greener manufacturing.
The broader industry message was that India must strengthen its domestic supply chain if it wants to compete on more than price. Pushpa Vijayaraghavan of Sathguru Management Consultants said India’s next leap depends on preserving its generics strength while accelerating backward integration in active pharmaceutical ingredients, expanding biologics and biosimilars, and taking innovation more seriously. She also argued that quality, regulation and sustainability will matter more as companies prepare for tougher global scrutiny and a revised manufacturing standard that takes effect in January 2026.
Others at the Hyderabad event stressed that compliance is no longer enough on its own. Chakravarthi AVPS of the Federation of Pharma Entrepreneurs in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh said the sector’s advantage will increasingly come from innovation, traceability, advanced packaging and globally benchmarked quality systems. Informa Markets India said the contract research and development manufacturing business could reach as much as $22 billion by 2030, underlining the scale of the opportunity if manufacturers, technology suppliers and drug developers work together more closely.
The policy also reflects a wider effort to spread growth beyond established industrial clusters. According to the Economic Times and Business Standard, Telangana plans 10 pharma villages, along with bio-innovation and bio-manufacturing clusters to support start-ups and smaller firms. State-backed initiatives such as Green Pharma City and a scale-up facility known as 1Bio are also part of the pitch, as Hyderabad and its surrounding districts seek to consolidate their place in an industry that is becoming more research-intensive, more regulated and more globally interconnected.
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