How India’s Biotech Ecosystem Is Shifting Toward Innovation and Global Partnerships

*Full transcript available below

In an interview with BioPharm International® during CPHI Frankfurt, Sridevi Khambhampatty, PhD, CEO of Shilpa Biologicals, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Dharwad, India, says the country’s industry is undergoing a strategic shift. After more than two decades focused largely on biosimilars, India’s biopharma ecosystem is now expanding into novel therapies and global innovation partnerships.

Dr. Khambhampatty, who has more than 20 years of industry experience, outlines emerging collaboration approaches in this evolving landscape. For example, Shilpa Biologicals is engaging in equity-based partnerships, co-development models with startups, and selective outsourced services to support innovators while sharing development risk. “We’ve kept a very flexible model,” she says.

How are geopolitics and supply chain challenges reshaping biotech?

According to Dr. Khambhampatty, global funding pressures in biotech, combined with post-pandemic supply chain constraints, tariffs, and import complexities, have accelerated regionalization strategies. Companies are now reevaluating market accessibility and manufacturing footprints to reduce vulnerabilities.

As an example, Shilpa Biologicals is prioritizing nearby and high-growth regions—including India, Latin America, and parts of Europe—as businesses reconsider how to ensure availability of critical biologics across geographies.

Dr. Khambhampatty also noted a policy shift supporting innovation in India. Increased government funding is helping the country expand from follow-on biologics to more complex modalities, including antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). These therapies, which require specialized expertise in antibodies, linkers, and payloads, are re-emerging as a promising oncology modality with several candidates advancing clinically, she explains.

“We can bring it all together to simplify the ADC supply chain,” Dr. Khambhampatty states, describing the company’s efforts to build conjugation capabilities and leverage chemical development strengths. As more companies pursue specialized biologics, integrated manufacturing and diversified partnership structures may continue to shape the next phase of India’s biotech growth, she notes.

Click the video above to view the full interview.

CPHI Frankfurt was held Oct. 28–30, 2025. Click here for more conference coverage.

About the speaker

Sridevi Khambhampaty, PhD, CEO, Shilpa Biologicals

Dr. Khambhampaty has 20+ years of experience in the biopharmaceuticals and biotechnology sectors. She received her PhD from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bangalore. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University in California, she served in various leadership roles at Syngene International, Intas Pharmaceuticals, and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, prior to her present assignment at Shilpa Biologicals.

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

My name is Sridevi, and I'm the CEO for Shilpa Biologicals. We are a biotech company based out of Dharwad, India, and I have a background with a PhD and postdoc, followed by 20 plus years in the industry, in the biosimilars industry, before moving on to my role in children biological.

It's an interesting time with the outsourcing partnerships and evolving biotech and cdmo space, we have actually started doing several innovative partnerships at Shilpa. We are looking at equity based partnerships, also partnerships where we are developing the product as a co-development partner with the startup that has invented or discovered the product, as well as we do service based model wherein we pitch in a part of the service that the company, that's the innovative company, or the discovery company, wants to outsource. So we've kept a very flexible model. So these are the various models. And I think this is very interesting in these times with the changing funding situation in biotech globally, I think these kind of equity based and partnership based food development partnership baspropositions are very interesting.

I think it's also question other than the various geopolitical factors, including supply chain issues, which most companies started facing during covid, coupled with, you know, evolving tariffs and various important taxation restrictions that are happening globally, every Pharma is rethinking their strategy and rethinking on how things can be made more locally as well as can be made with more accessible to the various geographies that we are. Then, for example, initial we focus quite a bit on the domestic as well as the markets such as Latin America, Europe, the clothes, the markets, I would say, which are geographically closer to us. So that's one reason that the shifting geopolitics is forcing people to rethink their strategy and how they want to develop new products. And also, I think, with respect to India, the the biotech ecosystem has matured adequately to now jump into innovation. I think the initial trust in India and the biotech, especially the biopharma space, was more focused on biosimilars, but the ecosystem has developed well now. And I think probably the Indian companies have been in the space for 20 plus years, and hence they are now excited to jump into innovation and novel products. And also there is a lot of support coming from the Indian government recently in terms of funding innovation, as opposed to continuing the development of generics and biosimilars.

I think the novel therapies are very are a very exciting space. For example, I think antibody drug conjugates or ADCs have made a sort of come back with several ADCs being in the clinical space right now. And also the ADC is a very specialized area, and with not everybody having the capability to make the antibody, make the linker payload, as well as do the conjugation. So here again, we are stepping into this niche space by creating our antibody conjugation suit and also leveraging expertise from the chemistry side of the organization to synthesize the payloads and linkers. Now I think we can bring it all together to simplify the ADC supply chain so.