Hyderabad: Not content with making its way to the top seven life sciences clusters in the world, Telangana has set its sights higher—it now wants to be counted among the top five global life sciences hubs by 2030. Armed with a new next-gen life sciences policy 2026-30, which was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Telangana is targeting another $25 billion in investments, with the potential to create over 5 lakh jobs over five years. To turn its lofty ambitions into reality, the Telangana govt also announced a dedicated Life Sciences Innovation Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore ($12 million), scalable to Rs 1,000 crore ($111 million), as part of the policy. To be set up in public-private partnership mode, the fund will co-invest along with venture capital and private equity funds to support start-ups, scale-ups, and translational research initiatives.The ultimate goal — to ensure deeper integration of Hyderabad and Telangana into global life sciences value chains, become indispensable to global supply chains, and emerge as a global originator of advanced therapies and platforms. The policy was unveiled by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, along with industries and IT minister D Sridhar Babu, industries and IT special chief secretary Sanjay Kumar, and Telangana Life Sciences CEO Shakthi M Nagappan.Some of the policy’s key highlights include allowing units set up in designated LS parks to operate 24×7, subject to prescribed safety norms, and setting up of a dedicated consultation committee comprising representatives of CDSCO, Telangana DCA, and TGPCB to simplify state-level clearances.It will focus on fostering cutting-edge R&D and advanced manufacturing, global value centres and innovation centres, diagnostics and medical electronics, as well as precision medicine and personalised therapies, clinical research, and scaling up of the pharma services ecosystem (including CDMOs and CROs) from $2 billion to around $10 billion.Hyderabad already ranks among the top seven life sciences clusters globally, housing global capability centres (GCCs), R&D, and digital transformation facilities of top 8 out of 10 global giants, including Novartis, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Amgen, and Bayer, among others. It also houses WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution C4IR Network and the world’s first healthcare and life sciences focused WEF centre.The new policy will also focus on availability of a dynamic and future-ready workforce. It will also work on improving Telangana’s Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) quotient by streamlining regulatory procedures as well as development of an ancillary ecosystem.Unveiling the policy, the CM said: “We are building one of the world’s most trusted and transformational biosciences ecosystems—driving global health impact from Telangana. The policy’s global unveiling at Davos reflects Telangana’s conviction that the next phase of growth in life sciences will be driven by cross-border collaboration, global capital, and shared innovation agendas.”Pointing out that in the last two years alone, Telangana’s life sciences sector attracted around Rs 73,000 crore investments, Sridhar Babu said with the new policy Telangana is eyeing investments of over Rs 2 lakh crore in the next 5 years.Sanjay Kumar said the policy is aimed at accelerating the adoption of breakthrough technologies such as AI, digital health, and next-generation therapeutics, while nurturing skilled talent.“A defining reform is the recognition of R&D units as full-fledged industrial enterprises, allowing them equal access to incentives and reinforcing the state’s commitment to innovation and high-value scientific activity,” he said.“Focused on frontier R&D, sustainable manufacturing, talent development, and a robust start-up-to-scale-up pipeline, the policy strengthens Telangana’s integration into the global life sciences value chain,” said Shakthi Nagappan.
