New Delhi, July 17 -- India is preparing to spend Rs.10,000 crore to build a capability its pharmaceutical industry still lacks: discovering, testing and scaling complex biological medicines. The government will shortly sanction the Biopharma SHAKTI scheme, retaining India's strength in generic drugs while pushing the industry towards innovation-led biologics, according to a senior official familiar with the matter. The scheme's operational guidelines are in the final stages and will be released by the Department of Pharmaceuticals after necessary approvals, including from the Union cabinet. It will then invite proposals from industry and industry-academia collaborations, the official said. The shift reflects a gap in India's pharmaceutical ambitions. Traditional chemical synthesis will remain important, but the rising burden of non-communicable diseases is increasing demand for high-value therapies in immunotherapy, advanced cancer care and weight loss. India lacks sufficient domestic capacity to take biological drug candidates from discovery through testing and scale-up. Biopharma SHAKTI aims to close that gap and move the country from generic-drug powerhouse towards a larger role in global biologics. Proposed in the Union Budget 2026-27 with an outlay of Rs.10,000 crore over five years, the scheme will support a pipeline of novel biologics and the infrastructure needed to test them. Biologics are complex medicines made from living organisms; biosimilars are highly similar versions of approved biologic drugs. The government is targeting a 5% share of the global biopharmaceutical market. The initiative will focus on biologics and biosimilars, including monoclonal antibodies and advanced cellular therapies such as CAR-T. It will also expand India's clinical-trial network and promote electronic health records. India's biopharma market is valued at approximately $64.5 billion, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation. A key intervention will be in Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organizations (CRDMOs), which handle biological synthesis, characterization, testing, de-risking and scale-up through pre-clinical and clinical research, the official said. India currently relies largely on expensive external sources for deep synthetic and structural biology capabilities and, often, clinical trials. Biopharma SHAKTI will seek to reduce that dependence through research grants, shared state-of-the-art facilities and partnerships with state governments to lower input, power and utility costs. "We have held extensive consultations with the industry, academia, government labs, ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research), DBT (Department of Biotechnology), BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council), NIPER (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research), to assess market needs and incorporated it accordingly in scheme guidelines," Manoj Joshi, secretary, Department of Pharmaceutical told Mint in an interview....