Hyderabad is emerging as a key hub for building artificial intelligence-driven capabilities for global pharmaceutical and medical technology companies, with several multinational firms developing core digital, R&D and decision-making platforms from their Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in the city, executives said during a panel discussion titled ‘Building Innovation-First GCCs: AI, R&D and Digital Transformation’ at BioAsia 2026 in Hyderabad on Wednesday (February 18, 2026).

Gail Horwood, chief marketing and customer experience officer at Novartis, USA, said her organisation was building modern, AI-enabled marketing capabilities exclusively in Hyderabad for use across its entire US marketing organisation. “The GCC works as an integrated extension of global teams, supporting the development of behaviour science-based marketing tools that span physical, digital and AI-driven touchpoints, including large language models,” she added.

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The executives also highlighted Hyderabad’s role in developing foundational AI and decision-support systems. Purav Gandhi, founder and CEO, Healthark said that over the past few years, capabilities built in the city had focused on giving teams greater control over decision-making, rather than relying on rigid, pre-configured digital prototypes embedded in legacy ecosystems.

Speaking about innovation and R&D transformation, Sanjay Patel, senior vice-president and global head of Innovation Capability Solutions and Services at Takeda, Switzerland, said India had emerged as the company’s flagship innovation location within its global network of centres. Mr. Patel said AI-driven work from GCCs now spanned multiple functions, including research, quality management and professional support, reflecting a shift from cost-focused centres to high-impact innovation engines.

Echoing this view, Som Chattopadhyay, senior vice-president, Global Business Solutions and national executive at Amgen, USA, said the pace and scale at which GCCs had evolved in recent years was unprecedented. He said the current environment was defined by rapid expansion driven by business demand, rather than incremental growth seen in earlier phases of offshoring.

Syed Naveed, executive officer and chief technology officer at Olympus Corporation, Japan, said India had become a central pillar of the company’s global digital and R&D strategy. He said innovation-led GCCs required sustained effort and cultural change, adding that transformation was a process rather than a one-time shift.

Badhri Srinivasan, group chief executive officer of Unilabs, Switzerland, said organisations were increasingly treating AI as a core strategic capability. He said secure environments were being created to allow teams to experiment with AI technologies, particularly in regulated healthcare settings, with Hyderabad playing a key role in developing such foundational capabilities.

Collaboration between Australia and India in life sciences and biotechnology is beginning to yield early results following the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, with Queensland positioning itself as a key partner for Indian companies and institutions across clinical research, translational science and healthcare innovation.

This momentum was highlighted during an exclusive media roundtable held on the sidelines of BioAsia 2026 in Hyderabad on Tuesday, where members of a Queensland delegation spoke about expanding cooperation in biosciences, clinical trials, academia and advanced healthcare technologies.

Speaking on the clinical research landscape, Ravindra Gandham, principal consultant with Nucleus Network, said Australia offered strong capabilities in early-phase clinical trials, while India brought ambition and a growing biotechnology sector. He outlined Nucleus Network’s focus on Phase 1 clinical trials, with operations based in Brisbane and international offices in the US and the UK following its acquisition of Hammersmith Medicines Research.

Highlighting regulatory and workforce advantages, Thu (Sue) Nguyen, founder and CEO of Clueo Clinicals, said Queensland provided one of the fastest approval pathways globally for early-phase clinical trials. She said approvals under Australia’s Clinical Trial Notification Scheme, overseen by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, could be secured within four to eight weeks, significantly faster than in many other jurisdictions.

Research into tropical health and infectious diseases was another area identified as a natural point of convergence. Andreas Kupz of the James Cook University Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine outlined work on vaccines and therapeutics for diseases such as tuberculosis, dengue and malaria, alongside natural product discovery based on Australia’s biodiversity and research into vector-borne disease control. Mr.Kupz said similarities in climate and disease burden created strong scope for collaboration between India and Australia, particularly in manufacturing and deployment.

Prasad KDV Yarlagadda OAM, dean at the University of Southern Queensland, cautioned against uncritical adoption of AI in healthcare and research. He said AI should be used to assist and accelerate processes rather than replace human expertise, particularly in areas such as drug and vaccine development.

Emphasising the importance of large-scale collaboration, Tamanna Monem of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute said the collaboration was essential to advancing therapies and technologies and noted that the institute maintained hundreds of partnerships globally. “India’s scale and speed, combined with Queensland’s integrated ecosystem of government, academia and industry, offers significant opportunities to deepen cooperation,” she added.

India’s evolving role as a global manufacturing backbone for next-generation biologics came into focus during a panel discussion on advanced therapies at BioAsia 2026 here on Tuesday where industry leaders pointed to the country’s capacity to scale complex technologies ranging from vaccines and RNA platforms to cell and gene therapies.

The panel, moderated by Gil Bashe, chair, Global Health and Purpose at Finn Partners, brought together senior executives and clinicians who underlined that innovation in biologics was no longer a solo pursuit but depended on collaboration, manufacturing depth and the ability to deliver therapies at scale.

Setting the context, Raches Ella, chief development officer of Bharat Biotech, highlighted India’s centrality to global vaccine production. “One in three children worldwide receives a vaccine produced in India, with manufacturing spanning research and development through to commercial production. The company’s ambition is to reach the entire global birth cohort of about 125 million children each year,” he added. 

From a technology platform perspective, Jose Castillo, chief executive officer of Quantoom Biosciences, described India as one of the earliest and most risk-taking markets for biomanufacturing innovation. Recalling that some of the first commercial bioreactors using his technology were deployed in India, Mr. Castillo said the country remained a critical market for promoting and scaling research and development technologies.

The importance of manufacturing ecosystems and skilled manpower was reinforced by Darrin Morrissey, chief executive officer of National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training. Representing Ireland’s biopharmaceutical sector, he said the country had spent over two decades building biologics manufacturing capabilities in partnership with multinational companies. He noted that Ireland now produces biologic medicines worth €100 billion annually, making it one of the world’s largest manufacturers in this space. 

He added that discussions are under way with the Telangana government to explore partnerships, reflecting growing interest in aligning global manufacturing expertise with India’s expanding biologics ecosystem.

India’s potential to industrialise highly complex therapies was further highlighted by Simpson V. Emmanuel, president of ImmunoACT. He spoke about the development and commercialisation of CAR-T cell therapy in India, describing it as a radical departure from conventional pharmaceutical manufacturing.

The discussion also touched on the need to align innovation with patient access. Sai Praveen Haranath, senior vice-president (Medical and Strategy) at Apollo Health Axis, said despite the availability of transformative therapies, large sections of the global population still lacked access to essential medicines.

Madhuri Vusirikala, vice-president of Clinical Development for BMT and Cellular Therapy at Actinium Pharmaceuticals, noted that despite being a rapidly evolving field, radioligand therapies remain underdeveloped in India, and said there was significant unmet need and scope for conducting clinical trials to benefit patients in the country.