By Bhanu Prakash Kalmath SJUnion Budget 2026 signals a decisive pivot in India’s health policy to build the full stack required for an innovation-led, patient-centred health economy. The government’s priorities are visible in three simultaneous moves: elevating India from a generics-first market to a credible biologics and biosimilars hub; scaling clinical trials and regulatory infrastructure to global standards; and strengthening preventive care and service delivery in areas where the system remains thin—mental health, emergency and trauma care, allied health manpower for Viksit Bharat, and integrative care that can anchor medical value tourism. Put simply, this is a capability-building budget: it lays the rails for discovering, testing, approving, and delivering advanced therapies at scale.
This direction closely aligns with what the Economic Survey 2025–26 has flagged about the double burden of increasing Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and communicable diseases (CDs) though the CDs are declining. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancers now account for over 57 per cent of all deaths, while overweight and obesity affect 24 per cent of women and 23 per cent of men - clear markers of lifestyle-driven risk accumulating across the working-age population. The Budget also reinforces the need to shift the health system from being largely treatment-led to one that prioritises prevention, early intervention, and behavioural health, reflecting growing concern around rising digital addiction and its mental-health implications highlighted in the Survey.
The headline announcement, Biopharma SHAKTI, with an outlay of ₹10,000 crore over five years, aims to enhance domestic manufacturing capability in the emerging biopharma market requiring significant capital- and talent investments. It seeks to move India up the pharmaceutical value chain, from volume-driven generics to complex therapies. The proposed expansion and upgrading of NIPERs, creation of over 1,000 accredited clinical trial sites, and strengthening of the CDSCO through specialised scientific cadres together address long-standing bottlenecks in skills, trials, and regulatory timelines. Long-awaited reforms in the clinical trials ecosystem are a welcome move and could further attract global pharma Global Capability Centres (GCC) to India who are moving up the value chain to be an integral part of the R&D.
Affordability and ease of living receive immediate attention as well. Exempting basic customs duty on 17 cancer drugs and extending duty-free personal imports to seven additional rare diseases provide near-term relief from out-of-pocket costs while domestic biopharma capacity scales up, an important intervention given that one in nine Indians faces a lifetime risk of cancer.
On the service delivery side, the establishment of NIMHANS-2 in North India, upgrades of mental health institutes in Ranchi and Tezpur to regional apex centres, and a 50 per cent expansion of emergency and trauma care capacity across district hospitals directly address geographic inequities in mental health access and the catastrophic expenditures that medical emergencies often trigger. These choices emphasise behavioural health pressures, including anxiety and depression linked to excessive screen time, now increasingly visible among younger cohorts.
Manpower- critical to both care delivery and prevention- is another binding constraint the Budget seeks to ease. Upgrading allied health institutions, adding 100,000 Allied Health Professionals across ten disciplines, and training 1.5 lakh caregivers in areas such as geriatric care, wellness, yoga, and assistive technologies will provide the operating muscle hospitals and home-care ecosystems need to translate infrastructure investments into improved throughput and quality.
The Budget also reinforces India’s integrative and export-oriented healthcare vision. Proposals to establish five Regional Medical Hubs and strengthen AYUSH- including three new All India Institutes of Ayurveda, upgraded pharmacies and drug-testing laboratories, and an enhanced WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre- aim to meet growing global demand while supporting farmers, skilled youth, and evidence-based traditional medicine. Importantly, this positions AYUSH not only as a cultural asset but also as a preventive and wellness pillar within the broader health system.
Where does this leave the industry, and what will India gain if execution matches intent? In the near term, patients should see lower landed prices for select oncology and rare-disease therapies, hospitals should gain staffing depth that improves operating performance, and more clinical trials should begin and conclude in India with clearer and more predictable regulatory reviews. Over the medium term, domestic biopharma can move up the value chain, medical hubs can translate into sustained medical tourism revenues, and strengthened mental-health and emergency networks can begin to reduce avoidable mortality and catastrophic health spending.
As India builds #HealthyIndia to shape a #Vibrant Bharat, further increasing the budget on public health expenditure as a share of GDP and greater support to encourage Research & Development in India would naturally strengthen the framework laid out in this Budget, particularly as the country seeks to deepen innovation and preventive care. Many themes - such as reducing the cost of cancer care, expanding mental-health and emergency infrastructure, strengthening the health workforce, and advancing the ‘Heal in India’ vision to grow medical tourism- also reflect continuity with previous budgets.
Overall, Budget 2026 represents a systems-level push. By combining manufacturing, prevention, workforce development, affordability, and integrative care, it moves India closer to becoming a high value products producer at low cost and also a credible hub for prevention, innovation, and advanced healthcare delivery - an essential foundation for a healthier, more resilient, and Viksit Bharat.”
(Bhanu Prakash Kalmath SJ is Partner and Healthcare Industry Leader, Grant Thornton Bharat)
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