Go East, To India, to see healthcare innovation’s future

Health inequality is one of the greatest global injustices.

In 2024, a quiet revolution began in the halls of Google's DeepMind, led by Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis. Using Artificial Intelligence, Hassabis and his team decoded the structures of over 200 million proteins—something that would have taken humanity centuries by traditional means. His work didn’t just win accolades; it opened a gateway to a new era where AI could collapse timelines for scientific discovery, slash the costs of drug development, and maybe even cure disease itself.

Hassabis predicted that within the next decade, AI could help eradicate all disease—a bold claim that may well prove prophetic.

But there was one thing Hassabis didn’t fully appreciate: the role India would play.

As Silicon Valley waits for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) to work its magic and reshape industries, a different kind of revolution is already underway—one focused on curing cancer and democratizing healthcare for billions.

West has a remarkable record, but is now ponderous

The West has built extraordinary medical systems, but they are slow, bureaucratic, and extremely expensive. The average cost to develop a single drug exceeds $2.5 billion and takes 10–15 years. Cancer therapies routinely cost patients hundreds of thousands of dollars. Only the privileged few have access to cutting-edge treatments, while billions are left behind.

Incremental research, siloed data, excessive regulatory delays, and a focus on profits over patients have turned medicine into a gated fortress. If we want a future where disease is conquered, we need to break free from this model. And that future can be built here.

Sample some Indian examples 

The seeds of change are already being planted. Karkinos Healthcare, which I had the privilege of mentoring and advising, has built a distributed cancer care model that deploys digital platforms to deliver early detection, affordable diagnosis, and precision therapies even in remote areas. Now part of Reliance, it will help hundreds of millions of people.

Tata Memorial Centre has pioneered affordable cancer treatments and translational research, running some of the world's largest clinical trials at a fraction of the cost. AIIMS and the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) are pushing the boundaries of genomics and molecular oncology.

IIT Madras has launched collaborative initiatives like the Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre, focusing on low-cost, high-impact healthcare innovations. Strand Life Sciences and MedGenome are leveraging genomic sequencing and bioinformatics to personalize cancer treatment and identify genetic risk factors. Biocon is driving innovations in biosimilars and affordable biologic therapies for cancer.

India’s three critical advantages

The Indian ecosystem is no longer in its infancy. It is growing, learning, and evolving. There are three immense advantages that few other countries can match:

# Unmatched wealth of patient data.

# Rapidly expanding base of deep tech expertise.

# New generation of entrepreneurs motivated not just by profit, but by the desire to do good for the world.

These innovators are blending deep science, AI, and grassroots distribution to build systems where cloud-based platforms analyze diverse patient data in real time, where diagnostic tools operate at the point of care instead of massive hospitals, and where personalized treatment protocols are generated by deep learning algorithms that continuously improve.

My company, Vionix Biosciences, is doing its part. We are developing cutting-edge diagnostics based on light spectrum analysis of biological samples—a technology built entirely in India. We are doing this in partnership with IIT Madras and AIIMS—working with engineering, scientific, and clinical expertise that is simply not available even in Silicon Valley, where I live.

Talking of Silicon Valley, Google's AI breakthroughs depended on readily available protein structures—but when it comes to diseases, tons of real-world patient data are needed, and even Google doesn’t have access to this in the U.S. It is no exaggeration to say that even the biggest AI efforts in the world will eventually depend on the data and innovation emerging from here. And it is India’s entrepreneurs who have the vision, the scale, and the heart to lead this revolution.

Two missteps to be avoided

There is now a chance to skip wasteful steps and converge existing global knowledge into working solutions.

India must not succumb to calls that prioritize basic research over practical application. Nor should resources be poured into prestige projects that lead nowhere—a common pitfall in the West. Instead, the focus must be on building test beds, living labs, and rapid deployment pipelines; on prioritizing "impact over hype"; and on encouraging entrepreneurs to take on real-world challenges—not just create another delivery app.

The advantages are real and powerful: talent, data, and cost. India produces and sustains an immense pool of skilled scientists and engineers—experts in biomedical instrumentation, molecular diagnostics, analytical chemistry, biotech, and AI—the kind of talent that is increasingly hard to find elsewhere. Many are educated at top institutions like the IITs, IISc, and AIIMS, and are driven by a passion to solve real-world problems rather than being locked away in corporate labs. When given the mission to innovate, they deliver world-class results with ingenuity, frugality, and creativity—a legacy of doing more with less—as I have personally witnessed.

Then there is the unparalleled depth and diversity of medical data. With 1.4 billion people, spanning different ethnicities, climates, diets, and disease patterns, the breadth of health information is unmatched. This matters immensely for AI-driven healthcare, which thrives on large, varied datasets. Unlike in the West, where strict privacy laws and fragmented hospital systems limit data sharing, efforts like the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission are rapidly building a unified health infrastructure, aiming to digitize the records of a billion people. With proper safeguards, this will create the world’s largest and most valuable health database—fueling an AI revolution in medical research and treatment.

Lower costs without compromise on quality

Indian innovation is also incredibly cost-effective compared to anywhere else in the world. Conducting clinical trials, hiring researchers, developing medical devices—all of it can be done at a fraction of the cost seen in high-income countries. The cost of R&D is less than 10 percent of what it would be in the West, as I have learned through my own company’s journey. Capabilities are unsurpassed. Scientists here have already delivered frontier innovations like CAR-T cell therapies at one-tenth the cost of similar treatments elsewhere. This frugality is not about cutting corners; it is about jugaad—ingenuity and efficiency. Technologies are designed to be affordable and accessible by necessity—and that means they can be democratized globally.

Perhaps the most important edge is one often overlooked: values and vision. India is imbued with a spirit of service—seva and karma—and a long-term view that prioritizes collective good over short-term profits. This ethos shapes the innovations, encouraging solutions that aim to save lives, bridge inequality, and serve humanity.

Benefits won’t be gated, they are for humanity

The ultimate prize is not just solving domestic healthcare challenges—it is democratizing healthcare globally. The opportunity now exists to shatter the old narrative that quality healthcare is a privilege reserved for a few in the West. Imagine widespread early cancer detection, enabled by low-cost devices, saving lives in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia—regions where late diagnosis often remains a death sentence.

Picture AI-driven diagnostic apps running on basic smartphones, empowering health workers in remote villages to treat diseases with precision—no expensive clinics required. These solutions are already taking shape.

Health inequality is one of the greatest global injustices. Indian innovations have already tilted the balance before, with generic medicines and vaccines being the backbone of public health programs across dozens of countries. When HIV drugs were prohibitively expensive in Africa, Indian firms stepped up and produced affordable versions that saved millions of lives. When COVID-19 struck, the Serum Institute supplied vaccines at scale to the world. Now, that model is extending to cutting-edge medical technologies. I see a future where an inexpensive handheld scanner detects tumors at their earliest stages, anywhere in the world, and AI suggests a cocktail of drugs—some discovered using indigenous AI models—to treat them, all at a fraction of today's costs.

More importantly, I see the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda—rooted in balance, prevention, and holistic wellbeing—playing an increasingly vital role in reshaping how we prevent disease all over the world. India can show the world how it can be done—one innovation at a time.