Friday, 4 September 2026
India’s pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are creating a new opportunity for the country’s commercial property market as scientific research, advanced manufacturing and global corporate operations require increasingly specialised buildings.
For decades, India’s life-sciences story was largely associated with pharmaceutical manufacturing, generic medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients and vaccines. That industrial base remains important, but the sector is gradually moving towards higher-value activities including biotechnology research, biologics, clinical development, medical technology and advanced pharmaceutical services.
This evolution is changing the type of real estate companies require. Conventional offices and industrial buildings cannot always accommodate modern scientific operations. Research laboratories may need sophisticated ventilation, greater electrical capacity, controlled environments, specialist waste systems and temperature management. Pharmaceutical production can require highly regulated manufacturing areas, while biological products and clinical materials create additional demand for temperature-controlled logistics.
As a result, life sciences is beginning to occupy a distinctive position between office, industrial, healthcare and infrastructure real estate.
India has the economic base to support the sector’s expansion. The country’s bioeconomy exceeded USD 165 billion in 2024 and the government is targeting approximately USD 300 billion by 2030. Continued expansion would create opportunities not only for pharmaceutical manufacturers but also for developers providing the physical infrastructure required by research and technology businesses.
Government policy is reinforcing this transition. The 2026–27 Union Budget introduced the Biopharma SHAKTI programme, committing ₹10,000 crore over five years to strengthen India’s capabilities in areas including biologics and biosimilars.
The programme also envisages new and upgraded pharmaceutical research institutions and a much larger network of accredited clinical-trial locations. Although primarily an industrial and healthcare initiative, its implementation could have significant property consequences because additional research, testing and manufacturing activity requires specialised facilities.
The long-term potential of the sector has already attracted attention from the property industry. Earlier market research estimated that India could require around 96 million sq. ft. of life-sciences research and development property between 2021 and 2030, potentially creating an investment opportunity measured in billions of dollars.
Those projections pre-date the current market and should not be interpreted as new 2026 forecasts. Nevertheless, they illustrate the potential scale of the property requirement if India’s scientific industries continue expanding.
The challenge for investors is that life-sciences real estate remains considerably less mature than India’s office, logistics and data-centre markets.
Laboratories and regulated manufacturing facilities can be expensive to develop and difficult to convert for other users. Their investment value therefore depends heavily on the quality of the occupier, length of the lease and strength of the surrounding scientific ecosystem.
These characteristics can also become an advantage.
Companies that invest heavily in laboratory infrastructure and regulatory approvals are less able to relocate casually than conventional office tenants. Established clusters containing research institutions, skilled employees, suppliers and other pharmaceutical companies can therefore create particularly resilient locations.
Hyderabad provides India’s strongest example.
The city’s life-sciences ecosystem has developed over several decades, with Genome Valley becoming one of the country’s most important concentrations of pharmaceutical and biotechnology businesses. More than 200 companies operate within the cluster, supported by research organisations, manufacturers and specialist scientific infrastructure.
Recent leasing activity reinforces Hyderabad’s position. Between 2023 and 2025, the city accounted for approximately 45% of India’s life-sciences global capability centre activity, substantially ahead of other major markets.
Bengaluru followed with around 26%, demonstrating the growing relationship between India’s technology economy and pharmaceutical research. Chennai accounted for approximately 13%, giving southern India a particularly strong position in the emerging market.
Hyderabad’s advantage could strengthen further as Telangana expands its life-sciences strategy.
The state is targeting USD 25 billion of additional investment and approximately 500,000 jobs under its 2026–30 plans. Telangana says it already accommodates more than 2,000 life-sciences companies and over 250 manufacturing facilities approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
New property development is beginning to reflect those ambitions. A specialist campus announced for Genome Valley in 2026 is expected to provide more than one million sq. ft. of laboratory facilities across approximately 12 acres.
Projects of this scale are important because they indicate how the sector could evolve from companies predominantly developing their own facilities towards a market in which specialist property businesses create scientific infrastructure for multiple occupiers.
That transition would make the sector considerably more accessible to institutional real-estate capital.
Bengaluru offers a somewhat different proposition. Its strength lies in the convergence of biotechnology with software, data science and artificial intelligence. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly use advanced computing for drug discovery, clinical analysis and research, the city’s enormous technology workforce could become increasingly relevant to life-sciences investment.
This relationship is also visible in the expansion of pharmaceutical global capability centres.
International healthcare and pharmaceutical companies increasingly use Indian operations for sophisticated functions including analytics, clinical support, digital technology, research services and product development rather than simply administrative processing.
That creates demand for premium office space as well as laboratories.
The result is a property sector that does not fit neatly into traditional classifications. Some assets will resemble offices with scientific facilities incorporated into them. Others will function as advanced industrial buildings. Cold-chain operations will require specialised logistics facilities, while research campuses may combine laboratories, offices and supporting amenities within a single development.
For institutional investors, this variety creates a more complicated market but also opens several potential routes to participation.
Purpose-built laboratories leased to established pharmaceutical companies could provide long-term income. Research campuses could accommodate multiple occupiers, while specialist developers could create portfolios across India’s major scientific clusters.
Sale-and-leaseback transactions could eventually provide another source of investment opportunities if pharmaceutical businesses decide to release capital tied up in their property while continuing to occupy strategically important facilities.
The development of specialist operating platforms may prove particularly important.
India’s logistics and data-centre markets both became more attractive to international capital as experienced developers created portfolios capable of being expanded and eventually consolidated. Life-sciences property could follow a similar path, although the technical requirements of the buildings mean that development is likely to be more specialised.
Location will consequently matter enormously.
States cannot create successful life-sciences clusters simply by providing inexpensive land. Companies require access to scientists, universities, hospitals, research organisations, pharmaceutical suppliers, transport infrastructure and appropriate utilities.
Hyderabad demonstrates the value of concentrating these elements within an established ecosystem.
Other cities may develop different specialisations rather than attempt to reproduce the same model. Bengaluru can exploit its technology and biotechnology capabilities, Chennai can combine manufacturing and research, while Pune and other established pharmaceutical centres could develop additional specialist property markets around their existing industrial bases.
The opportunity extends beyond laboratories themselves.
Growing pharmaceutical manufacturing generates demand for temperature-controlled warehouses and distribution infrastructure. Expanding research campuses create requirements for offices, housing and hospitality. Large employment clusters can also support retail and other commercial development.
Life-sciences investment can therefore influence considerably more real estate than the specialist buildings occupied directly by pharmaceutical companies.
The sector remains at an early stage from an institutional property perspective. India does not yet have the depth of transactions or large stabilised portfolios found in established life-sciences real-estate markets internationally.
That distinction is important. India’s pharmaceutical industry is already global in scale, but its institutional life-sciences property market is still being created.
The combination could ultimately be what makes the opportunity significant.
India already possesses pharmaceutical manufacturing expertise, a substantial scientific workforce, major technology centres and a rapidly expanding biotechnology economy. What is now emerging is the specialist real estate required to support the industry’s next stage of development.
If more pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies choose to lease professionally developed laboratories, research campuses and specialised manufacturing facilities rather than owning all their property directly, institutional investors could gain access to an entirely new segment of Indian commercial real estate.
India’s next major property growth story may therefore emerge not from another generation of conventional offices or warehouses, but from the laboratories, research campuses and specialised facilities supporting its transformation into a higher-value global life-sciences centre.
Source: © CIJ.World India Research & Analysis Team
