Because the bigger battle isn’t about tariffs. It’s about fighting disease, reducing dependency, and protecting innovation.
And in that battle, patients must never pay the price.

Protectionism won’t fix America’s drug pricing crisis. It will raise costs, slow innovation, and destabilise supply chains.
If Washington truly seeks resilience, it needs incentives, partnerships, and trust—not punishment.

* Innovation: Combined with new US price controls, revenues for R&D could shrink—just as China accelerates biopharma ambitions.
* Geopolitics over patients: Tariffs are being deployed as a political tool, not a health policy solution.

What’s at stake?
* Global health security: Tariffs risk shortages of essential medicines.
* Supply chain fragility: Indian firms may be forced into deeper reliance on Chinese APIs.

A 25% tariff alone would add $50 billion annually to US healthcare spending and raise drug prices by nearly 13%. Higher tariffs could drive Indian generics—nearly half of America’s supply—out of the market, leaving patients with fewer, more expensive options.

The US is weighing pharma-specific tariffs that could climb as high as 250% on imported drugs. For now, India—the ‘pharmacy of the world’—is spared. But uncertainty looms.

As China accelerates in pharma & the US restructures, India has a chance to lead in AI-assisted drug discovery. Leveraging talent, patient datasets & biotech policies could shift India from the ‘pharmacy of the world’ to a hub of pharma innovation.

AI-based techniques hold considerable potential to transform this landscape by enabling accurate and efficient analysis of large datasets, predicting the properties and functions of novel drug candidates, and enhancing the efficacy of clinical trials through improved trial design.

While research on mirror molecules is encouraged for their therapeutic and industrial potential, science policy should discourage efforts to create mirror organisms - a life form that does not exist naturally and one that can evade current biosurveillance measures and resist existing countermeasures

This article argues that as the twenty-first century unfolds as the ‘century of biology,’ research into mirror biology exemplifies the paradox of #innovation and #security.

#Mirrorbiology is an emerging field that explores the creation and behaviour of mirror-image biological systems.

India needs to address the risks posed by the AI-bio convergence through a biosecurity framework, where the potential misuse of biotechnology by AI can be elucidated by involving multiple stakeholders.

While AI, in its current form, is unlikely to catalyse the development of biological weapons, policymakers need to be aware of the scope, limitations, and feasibility of this potentiality to ensure effective safeguards against the misuse of these technologies in the future.

Throwback to my issue brief, from last December, for @orf where I argue that there is a need to evaluate the real risk of AI-bio capabilities in the Indian context.
Read it here: www.orfonline.org/research/a-f...

My chapter explores these upheavals and outlines pathways forward, including the role of regional platforms such as BRICS and the importance of building consensus around the pandemic treaty to ensure a more equitable and resilient global health order.

In this context, global health diplomacy is no longer optional; it is vital to bridge divides, foster cooperation, and safeguard peace and security.

Global health today stands at a crossroads. From the shocks of Covid-19 to the rising burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases — and from climate change to intensifying geopolitical rivalries — the challenges are mounting.

Despite making a tremendous step towards sustainable agriculture and food security, the release sparked public debate over biosafety, ethics, and consumer acceptance, necessitating a nuanced assessment over gene-edited food crops in the Indian context.

In a notable milestone to India’s agri-biotechnology sector, ICAR announced the development of two gene-edited rice varieties that display climate-resilience and enhanced productivity, achieved without any introduction of foreign DNA.