Source: The post Biotech and healthtech together can democratise healthcare in India has been created, based on the article “The wellness double helix” published in “Financial Express” on 26th August 2025. Biotech and healthtech together can democratise healthcare in India.
UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 3- Awareness in the fields of bio-technology And GS Paper2-Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health,
Context: India’s healthcare faces scale and access challenges. A vast population, uneven geography, and under-resourced public facilities—serving 65% in “rurban” areas—strain delivery. Urban private hospitals grow, but gaps persist. Recent digital initiatives and a push for biotech together trigger a debate on how to democratise care.
For detailed information on Technology and Innovation in Healthcare read this article here
Systemic Challenges and Digital Bridges
- Population scale and facility gaps: The system must serve the world’s largest, highly dispersed population. Public facilities are under-resourced while well-funded private hospitals cluster in cities. This creates unequal access.
- Telemedicine as a bridge: eSanjeevani has enabled 12 crore tele-consultations. Private platforms add reach. Patients avoid long travel. The tools also soften rural doctor shortages.
- Digital public infrastructure: Electronic health records under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and AI Centres of Excellence show a forward-looking approach. U-Win digitises vaccination services. e-Hospital links patients with hospitals and doctors. e-Bloodbank is maturing.
Why Biotech Must Lift Healthtech
- From primary care to precise detection: Digital rails widen reach, but quality depends on biotech. Robust biotech moves care beyond basic symptom checks to large-scale detection of diseases and genetic disorders. It reduces trial-and-error treatments that raise costs and harm outcomes.
- Indigenous R&D for access: Local biotech can deliver biosimilars, vaccines, and targeted therapies for the masses. Combined with healthtech, it shifts care from reactive to proactive.
- Data-driven proactive care: A rural worker’s app connected to portable biotech and bioinformatics can reveal hidden patterns. Wearable data analysed by AI can surface latent risks. At scale, such data can signal an emerging crisis and enable timely interventions.
Building the Biotech Ecosystem
- New capacity and regional clusters: Parliament was told on July 30 that 94 biotech incubators have been set up since 2012 with about ₹490 crore. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Telangana each host more than 10 incubators. BIRAC supports startups.
- Healthcare applications: Gene editing corrects defects and treats viral infections and cancers. Genomics identifies tumor-driving mutations and guides therapy. mRNA therapeutics instruct cells to produce needed proteins. Biomanufacturing produces insulin and vaccines at scale.
- Accelerated discovery and new modalities: AI speeds every drug-discovery stage. Personalised regimens emerge from large datasets. Virtual clinical trials operate today. Organ-mimicking chips and tissue engineering reshape repair and replacement.
Wider Impact and Global Collaboration
- Beyond healthcare and bio-convergence: Biotech improves crops, builds resilience to salinity or drought, and boosts nutrition. Industry uses microbes to tackle pollution, make biofuels, and develop biodegradable plastics. Bio-convergence blends AI, biology, engineering, and computing.
- Collaboration and harmonisation: Academia, industry, and governments must collaborate openly. Sharing anonymised patient data accelerates solutions. Regulatory harmonisation enables cross-border specialist consultations and wider impact.
- Scaling the vision: Life-changing biotech innovations should ride the healthtech highway to maximise global benefit.
Question for practice:
Examine how the integration of healthtech and biotech can transform India’s healthcare system from reactive to proactive care.
