India should move beyond being the “Pharmacy of the World” and become “Laboratory of the World”, driven by research, innovation and emerging technologies, said Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Health and Family Welfare, and Chemicals and Fertilisers at an event recently.

Addressing the third edition of the IIMA Healthcare Summit 2026 on the theme “Advancing AI in Healthcare” at IIMA, Ahmedabad, the minister highlighted India’s contribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the Indian pharmaceutical industry ensured uninterrupted supplies of vaccines and essential medical products to over 200 countries, while India’s vaccination program administered over 2.2 billion doses.

Speaking about the transformational power of AI, she highlighted its potential to accelerate drug discovery, enable personalised treatments and strengthen healthcare delivery through improved screening, clinical decision-making and disease surveillance. The minister stressed that AI adoption must be safe, responsible and human-centered, with strong safeguards for patient privacy and technology complementing, rather than replacing, human clinical judgement.

She called for moving from pilots to population-level implementation through stronger collaboration among government, academia, healthcare institutions, startups and industry. She also stated that Centers of Excellence (COEs) for AI in healthcare have been established at AIIMS New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and AIIMS Rishikesh.

The minister said the government’s INR 5,000 crore Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma-MedTech Sector (PRIP) Scheme, aims at strengthening research and industry-academia collaboration and supports transition toward innovation-led growth. She also highlighted the INR 10,000 crore Biopharma SHAKTI mission, announced in the Union Budget, to strengthen capabilities in biologics and biosimilars, develop skilled manpower, strengthen regulatory and clinical trial capabilities to support the domestic biopharmaceutical ecosystem.

Manoj Joshi, Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), highlighted the growing adoption of AI in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. He said that while large pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using AI for production, human resource, marketing, distribution and inventory management, startups, particularly in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are leveraging AI for drug discovery, enabling faster identification and shortlisting of potential drug candidates and significantly reducing the time required for drug discovery.

He highlighted challenges related to access to capital, software licensing, computing capacity and specialised talent and said the government is working to address these through initiatives including the National Biopharma Mission and IndiaAI Mission.  

Joshi also informed that the government is working toward providing substantial support for eligible startups toward software licensing and operational costs to strengthen AI-led innovation in pharmaceuticals. He underlined the importance of making healthcare and genetic data accessible to Indian innovators with appropriate safeguards and stressed upon the potential of AI in clinical trials, precision medicine and digitisation of patient-level healthcare data.

Punya Salila Srivastava, Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, highlighted the government’s efforts to build a robust digital health ecosystem and promote responsible, evidence-based use of AI. She said Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is creating an interoperable, open-standards-based digital health ecosystem, with over 96 crore ABHA IDs and over 1,000 crore health records digitally linked across healthcare facilities and professionals.

She spoke about the AI-enabled applications for early detection of diseases such as tuberculosis and diabetic retinopathy, as well as AI-enabled clinical decision support through eSanjeevani, which has benefited more than 20 crore patients. She emphasised privacy, responsible AI, evidence-based innovation and collaboration among government, academia, startups and industry, while highlighting the IndiaAI Mission and AIKosh for democratising access to datasets, AI models and toolkits.

Pankaj Patel, Chairman, IIMA Board of Governors and Chairman, Zydus Lifesciences, spoke about the transformative potential of AI across the healthcare value chain, from drug discovery to patient care. He noted that AI can accelerate the identification of potential drug candidates, support clinical trial design and patient recruitment and help researchers identify failures earlier.