Telangana to be made Health-Tech Mecca of the world: KTR

Inaugurating the 20th edition of State's flagship industry event, BioAsia 2023, he said the lifesciences sector in Telangana was growing at 23 per cent for the last few years

Hyderabad: Announcing the State’s intentions to work on a programme to position Hyderabad as the Health-Tech Mecca of the world, IT Minister KT Rama Rao said Telangana had set a target to take the value of the lifesciences ecosystem here to $250 billion (Rs 20.5 lakh crore) by 2030.

Inaugurating the 20th edition of State’s flagship industry event, BioAsia 2023, here on Friday, he said the lifesciences sector in Telangana was growing at 23 per cent for the last few years compared to the country’s average of 14 per cent, he said.

The State was aiming to reach $100 billion (8.2 lakh crore) by 2028 but it had already touched $80 billion (Rs 6.56 lakh crore) now and the remaining would be achieved by 2025 itself, a clear three years of the set target, he said.

Noting that use of technology and the advent of AI would drive transformative changes in the way diseases are diagnosed and healthcare is delivered to patients, the Minister said the State would work on a programme to position Hyderabad as the `Health-Tech Mecca’ of the world.

“Hyderabad’s excellent infrastructure, logistics connectivity, and talent make it the most credible, stable and secure ecosystems for global lifesciences companies to work out of,” he said, adding that BioAsia had consistently played a crucial role in the development of the lifesciences industry in Telangana and India. This outstanding platform has consistently attracted a galaxy of healthcare, pharma and lifesciences leaders from more than 100 countries, he said.

The theme for this year was ‘Advancing for ONE: Shaping the next generation of humanized healthcare.’ The Covid-19 pandemic has proved the value of collaboration and its impact on people’s wellbeing. The world came together to overcome one of humanity’s greatest healthcare challenges, he said.

Telangana has been a frontrunner in identifying the importance of life sciences, pharma and of course the development of holistic healthcare. Hyderabad is the only city in the country that has an ever-growing Genome Valley, an expanding Medtech Park and an upcoming Pharma City, which will be the world’s largest.

This state-of-the-art infrastructure, combined with progressive policies and proactive execution on the part of the Government, has distinguished Telangana as a progressive State and enhanced the State’s share and contribution to positive health outcome nationally and globally.

“Given the current momentum, I am confident that we will achieve our target of $100 billion by 2025 itself, five years ahead of schedule,” Rama Rao said, stating that the growth was evident from the fact that State had attracted net new investment of more than $3billion over the last 7 years. During the same period, Telangana had created a total employment of more than 4.5 lakh jobs, he said.

“Our ultimate aim is to make Telangana the knowledge capital of the world’s life sciences industry. A key component of this is the growth of the lifesciences services sector. We already serve more than 1,000 lifesciences companies globally, including the top 10 pharma companies, in their innovation journey,” he said.

This is being done through the work being executed by R&D and technology partners like Aragen, Sai, Syngene, Deloitte, Accenture, Tech Mahindra, among many others. Four of the top 10 global innovator companies now have a direct presence in Hyderabad through their dedicated centres that drive core R&D, digital and engineering activities.

“We have established our stature as the world’s pre-eminent lifesciences destination, but I don’t want us to stop here. We have a unique opportunity to help reshape the future of the lifesciences industry. I envision that by 2030, the value of the lifesciences ecosystem will cross $250 billion,” he said.