India’s Department of Pharmaceuticals has reopened its Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma & MedTech scheme, offering increased funding and streamlined application tracks to accelerate homegrown innovation in medicines and medical devices.
India’s Department of Pharmaceuticals has opened a second call for applications under its Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma & MedTech scheme, sharpening a programme designed to push startups, MSMEs and larger firms further up the innovation chain. The scheme carries an outlay of ₹5,000 crore and is intended to support work from early discovery through to commercialisation, with applications to be submitted through the PRIP portal when the window opens by mid-September. Companies that applied in the first round have been told not to file the same project again. According to the department’s scheme pages and the latest official release, the programme now sits within a two-part structure covering research infrastructure at NIPERs and direct support for product development in the pharma and MedTech sectors.
The revised call simplifies applications into two tracks, replacing the earlier three-category format. Early-stage proposals from startups and MSMEs at Technology Readiness Levels one to three can seek support to move no further than TRL 5, beginning with a concept note before shortlisted applicants submit full proposals. Later-stage projects from industry, startups and MSMEs at TRL 4 to 6 can go straight to the detailed application stage. The official guidance says early-stage awards can reach ₹5 crore per project, while later-stage projects may receive up to ₹100 crore, subject to a ceiling of 35% of total approved project cost, with the balance coming from the applicant.
That is a meaningful shift for smaller innovators. In the first round, comparable early-stage support was far more limited, and the higher ceiling should give fledgling research teams more room to complete validation work before approaching private investors or larger strategic partners. The two-step concept-note process also lowers the administrative burden for applicants that might otherwise have to prepare a full submission without any certainty of selection. By contrast, the later-stage track remains designed for projects with deeper institutional backing, making it more of a co-financing mechanism for expensive development work such as clinical validation and scale-up.
The department has kept its focus on three priority areas: new medicines, complex generics and biosimilars, and novel medical devices. The last category is especially broad, covering AI- and machine learning-based devices, software as a medical device, genetic-technology diagnostics, surgical robotics, telemedicine-enabled devices and other precision-medicine tools. Officials have said the wider PRIP framework is meant to help transform India’s pharma and MedTech industry from cost-led competition towards innovation-led growth, backed by research infrastructure, industry-academia collaboration and commercialisation support.
The scheme was amended and formally notified on October 1, 2025, according to a Press Information Bureau release, with the stated aim of improving governance, clarifying implementation and making benefit-sharing more effective. The government says PRIP has two components: one to strengthen research infrastructure through centres of excellence at seven NIPERs, and another to fund R&D output that can be validated for market launch and large-scale commercialisation. For applicants weighing whether to submit, the immediate calculus is straightforward: the portal is reopening soon, the funding pool is larger for early-stage work than before, and the government is signalling that it wants a stronger domestic pipeline in medicines and advanced medical devices.
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