For decades, Indian pharma has been defined by its cost advantage; Ankur Shah believes the next decade will be defined by capability. As Founder and Chairman of Invengene, he is building an asset-light, science-led injectables platform that owns the IP, the dossiers and the regulatory pathway, while orchestrating a global network of manufacturing and commercial partners across 90+ markets. In this conversation with IndiaMedToday, Shah explains why complex injectables are India’s real opportunity, how a market-backwards model keeps innovation commercially grounded, and what it will take for Indian companies to move from being low-cost suppliers to trusted, capability-led partners on the global stage.
1. India has long been seen as a cost-led pharma hub. What does it take for the industry to become a capability-led global partner?
Cost got India a seat at the table; capability is what keeps us there. The shift is less about price and more about what we can do that few others can, i.e. develop genuinely complex products, build the quality systems that regulators trust, and stand alongside partners as co-developers rather than mere suppliers. That means investing in formulation science, in regulatory depth across multiple geographies, and in the governance and process discipline that make outcomes repeatable rather than heroic. The conviction the industry needs to internalise is that Indian pharma can compete on capability, quality, and execution, not just affordability. When a company owns the science and the dossier and can move a complex molecule reliably from development to commercialisation, it stops being a vendor and becomes a partner. That transition, repeated across enough companies, is what moves the whole industry up the value chain.
2. In your view, what is the biggest structural change Indian pharma must make to compete at a higher global level?
The most important shift is moving from a volume mindset to a differentiation mindset and backing it with professional governance. For years, success was measured in tonnes and unit price. The next decade rewards companies that can develop products others find difficult, in dosage forms that carry real scientific barriers. But science alone isn’t the structural change; it has to be paired with how the organisation is run. Too many Indian companies remain promoter-dependent, where growth lives in a few individuals rather than in systems. The industry needs to move towards professionally governed, process-led organisations, capital-efficient, cross-functionally aligned, and designed to scale without depending on any one person. That combination of scientific differentiation and institutional discipline is, to my mind, the real structural change. It’s harder than adding capacity, but it’s what global partners look for when they decide whom to trust with long-term programmes.
3. What is Invengene building today that you believe is most distinctive in the injectables space?
What’s distinctive is the model as much as the molecules. Invengene is an asset-light, science-led platform: we own the product IP and dossiers, develop complex injectables in our R&D centre, and manufacture through a network of globally compliant partners rather than carrying heavy plants of our own. That lets us concentrate our energy on the hardest, most valuable part – the science and the regulatory pathway – across a deliberately broad set of dosage forms, from lyophilised powders and liposomes to emulsions, peptides, and pre-filled syringes. We’re targeting a focused portfolio of 15 developed injectables by FY31, spanning oncology, antifungals, anaesthesia reversal, hormonal therapy, and the GLP-1 and peptide space. The distinctiveness is in orchestration: bringing science, manufacturing, and global commercialisation together into one seamless outcome for our partners. We don’t just hand over a product; we simplify the complexity of getting a difficult injectable to market.
4. Why are injectables and complex formulations such an important opportunity for Indian pharma right now?
Because this is where value is moving, and where the barriers to entry actually protect the people who do the work well. Injectables, especially complex ones like liposomes, lyophilised products, emulsions, and peptides, are scientifically demanding and tightly regulated, which means fewer credible players and more durable partnerships. At the same time, global demand is surging, driven by oncology, critical-care therapies, and the extraordinary momentum behind GLP-1s and peptides. India already has the formulation talent and the regulatory experience; what’s been missing is the deliberate decision to specialise here rather than chase easier, more crowded categories. For a capability-led company, that’s exactly the opening. The opportunity isn’t simply to make more injectables, it’s to move up into the complex end of the category, where differentiation is real, competition is thinner, and partners genuinely need a science-led collaborator. That’s a far stronger position than competing on volume.
5. What does a strong, globally competitive injectable business model look like in practice?
In practice, it looks deceptively lean. A strong model concentrates ownership where the value is the intellectual property, the dossiers and the regulatory strategy and stays flexible everywhere else. We own and develop the science, then manufacture through globally compliant CMO partners based out of India and South America, and commercialise through a partner network spanning more than 90 countries. That asset-light structure keeps us capital-efficient and lets us invest in development rather than concrete. Equally important is being partner-first: we work through several models like licensing, technology transfer, co-development and co-marketing, so we can shape the relationship around what each partner actually needs. A competitive injectable business, in short, is scientifically deep, operationally flexible, regulatory-ready across markets, and disciplined about capital. Strength comes from focus and orchestration, not from owning every link in the chain.
6. How do you decide which products, markets, or partnerships are worth pursuing?
We follow what I’d call a market-backwards approach. Rather than developing a product and then hunting for demand, we start with the market – a real, evidenced need in a defined geography and work backwards to the science and the regulatory pathway. A candidate has to clear a few tests: is there genuine demand, can we develop it to a globally compliant standard, does it sit in a therapy area where complexity gives us an edge, and is there a clear route to patients through a partner who values what we bring? Markets are chosen on the same logic – regulatory feasibility, partner strength, and long-term fit rather than opportunistic one-off sales. And partnerships matter most of all, because ours is a partner-led model; we look for collaborators who want a long-term, science-based relationship, not a transaction. Discipline in saying no is as important as ambition in saying yes.
7. How do you balance scientific innovation with commercial viability and market demand?
I don’t see them as opposing forces that need balancing so much as a sequence that needs aligning. Our market-backward approach means commercial viability and demand are built into the choice of programme from the very start – we innovate towards a defined need, not away from one. The discipline is in committing our scientific energy to complex products that are genuinely difficult and genuinely wanted, where the difficulty itself creates commercial value. Science that can’t reach patients reliably, at a sustainable cost, doesn’t serve our purpose of Simplifying Science, Together. So, innovation at Invengene is purposeful: we ask early whether a formulation can be manufactured at scale through our partner network, whether it can clear regulatory review efficiently, and whether it solves a real problem for a real market. When the answer to all three is yes, innovation and commercial viability stop competing they reinforce each other. That alignment is the whole point of the model.
8. In pharma, what matters more for long-term success: R&D strength, execution discipline, or regulatory readiness?
It’s a fair question, but I’d resist choosing one because in injectables, weakness in any of the three undoes the other two. Brilliant R&D that can’t pass regulatory scrutiny never reaches a patient. Flawless regulatory work on a product that nobody executed well is wasted. What actually drives long-term success is the orchestration of all three, and if I had to name the binding agent, it’s execution discipline, because that’s what turns scientific intent and regulatory know-how into repeatable outcomes. We deliberately built Invengene around process-led execution rather than individual brilliance, so that our R&D depth and regulatory readiness compound over time instead of depending on heroics. Think of it as a symphony: the science writes the score, regulatory readiness keeps it in tune for each market, and execution discipline is the conductor that brings them together. Long-term success belongs to companies that can do all three, consistently, programme after programme.
9. How important are strategic partnerships and asset-light models in scaling a business like Invengene?
They’re not a feature of our strategy; they are the strategy. The asset-light model is what lets a focused team punch well above its size. By owning the IP and the science while manufacturing through globally compliant CMO partners, we scale our reach without scaling our overheads, and we keep our capital working on development and dossiers rather than on bricks and machinery. Partnerships extend that same logic to the market: a presence across more than 90 countries simply isn’t achievable, at our stage, by going it alone. Our partners bring local commercial strength and market access; we bring formulation depth, regulatory readiness, and speed. That sharing of strengths and of risk is what makes sustainable, capital-efficient growth possible. It also keeps us honest, because partners choose you only as long as you keep delivering. For a company built to be agile and specialised, an asset-light partnership isn’t a compromise; it’s the engine.
10. What leadership principles have helped you build a professionally governed and process-driven organization?
A few principles have guided me. First, build systems, not dependence growth, should live in processes and teams, not in any single person, including the promoters. That’s why we set out to make Invengene professionally governed from day one. Second, capital efficiency as a discipline, not a slogan: every rupee should work towards the science and the partnerships that create durable value. Third, cross-functional alignment – R&D, regulatory, business development, and operations have to move to the same rhythm, because in complex injectables, a hand-off failure is a programme failure. And fourth, market-backwards thinking, so that ambition stays anchored to real demand. Underpinning all of it is a belief I’ve carried since my earliest years in the industry: that science must be practical, scalable, and commercially disciplined. Lead with those principles consistently, and governance stops being a constraint; it becomes the thing that lets you scale with confidence.
11. What is the hardest part of scaling a healthcare enterprise sustainably?
The hardest part is holding your discipline as you grow. In a regulated category like injectables, the temptation at every stage is to chase growth that quietly compromises quality, governance, or capital discipline and those compromises rarely show up immediately. They surface years later, in a regulatory finding or a partner who loses trust. So the real challenge is sustaining the same rigour at scale that you had when you were small: the same quality systems, the same care in choosing programmes, the same refusal to overextend. The other genuinely hard part is people. A capability-led, process-driven organisation depends on building and retaining high-calibre scientific and regulatory talent. For us, around 40 of our roughly 60-strong team sit in R&D. Scaling sustainably means growing that capability thoughtfully rather than simply adding headcount. Sustainable scale, in the end, is a series of disciplined choices to not take the easy shortcut.
12. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest global opportunity for Indian pharma over the next five years?
The biggest opportunity is for India to be recognised as the world’s capability-led partner in complex medicines, not its low-cost back office. Over the next five years, I expect the centre of gravity to keep shifting towards complex injectables, peptides, and the GLP-1 wave, alongside other differentiated formulations where scientific depth and regulatory readiness genuinely matter. Global partners increasingly want collaborators who can co-develop, own the science, and deliver to compliant standards across many markets at once and that is precisely the space Indian companies are now equipped to occupy. The opportunity, then, is a change in role: from supplying products to orchestrating outcomes, from competing on price to partnering on capability. If enough of us make that transition, India moves up the global value chain in a durable way. At Invengene, that’s the future we’re building towards – scaling science that serves, empowers, and extends access worldwide.
