The Rise of India's Life Sciences GCCs

In the last five years, India's life sciences landscape has shifted from a back-office mindset to a central engine for research and development. Global firms have spun up Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India that serve as more than support hubs — they're becoming strategic nodes that co-own pipelines and outcomes with headquarters overseas. An EY India report highlights a signal moment: 23 of the top 50 global life sciences players now run GCCs in the country, and most of these centers were established in the past five years. Think of these hubs as “twins” of their global HQs, closely aligned on innovation, supply chains, and product strategy.

• The evolution from enablement to core operations: What started as a way to handle enabling tasks has evolved into a full-fledged, knowledge-intensive operation. The EY analysis shows Indian GCCs now take on substantial portions of their parent companies’ global functions, marking a decisive shift in how work is distributed across the world.
• A snapshot of penetration: HR is deeply integrated (about 75%), finance (roughly 70%), IT (around 67%), and supply chain (about 62%). These figures aren’t about outsourcing, but about embedding decision-making and execution in India to influence global performance.
• Moving further up the value chain: Core functions are increasingly housed in these centers — regulatory affairs (60%), medical affairs (54%), commercial operations (50%), and drug discovery and development (45%). The migration of such responsibilities signals a new model where India-based teams shape clinical and regulatory strategies alongside their HQs.

The real heartbeat of this shift is the rapid and ambitious deployment of artificial intelligence and data analytics.

• AI as a differentiator: Indian GCCs aren’t waiting for the next wave of tools. They’re using AI and ML to sift through unstructured clinical data, accelerate molecule discovery, and predict trial outcomes with greater precision. The payoff isn’t speculative — in some cases, AI-enabled processes have shaved document processing times from days to minutes.
• Big-ticket bets and real-world impact: Bristol Myers Squibb has invested about $100 million in a Hyderabad innovation hub to push AI-driven drug development, while Sanofi is expanding its Hyderabad GCC with a focus on AI and digital platforms for R&D and manufacturing. These investments speak to a shared belief that AI can compress timelines, reduce risk, and improve regulatory fitness.

Why India, and why now? The answer lies in talent, economics, and policy support.

• A massive talent pool: India’s life sciences workforce numbers over 2.7 million professionals, with a growing cohort skilled in AI, data analytics, and bioinformatics. That isn’t a one-off surge — it’s an enduring capability that can sustain ongoing, high-stakes projects.
• Cost and efficiency: Operational costs in India remain lower than in many Western hubs, providing a meaningful lever for global firms looking to stretch R&D investments further without compromising quality.
• A friendly policy backdrop: Central and state-level incentives, skilling programs, and targeted subsidies in biotech hotspots like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai help reduce barriers to investment and make it easier to recruit specialized talent.

What this means for the pharma and healthcare ecosystem

• A new R&D blueprint: We’re looking at a distributed R&D model where Indian GCCs co-own pipelines and outcomes with HQs. This setup fosters more agile decision-making, faster iteration cycles, and shared accountability for results.
• Patient-centric advantages: Access to larger data sets and advanced analytics can inform trial design and endpoints earlier in development, potentially speeding time-to-market while maintaining patient safety and regulatory compliance.
• Regulators as partners: As AI accelerates development workflows, regulatory bodies are increasingly leaning on data-driven evidence. Indian GCCs’ embedded regulatory know-how can help preempt delays by aligning development plans with regulatory expectations from the outset.

The upshot is more than geography. It’s a new operating model in which capability centers function as strategic co-pilots for discovery and manufacturing, tightly integrated with global leadership.

• The co-ownership trend: These centers aren’t