India: MedTech’s Next Frontier

  • India is a strategic growth and innovation hub for US MedTech
  • India’s healthcare giants are reshaping demand for advanced technologies
  • There is a competitive risk for US MedTechs delaying engaging with India’s fast-moving market
  • This Commentary presents a roadmap for CEOs and boards to build a lasting presence and partnerships in India

India: MedTech’s Next Frontier

In US MedTech boardrooms, global strategy still defaults to Western Europe, China, and high-income Asia. India - dynamic, innovative, and increasingly indispensable - remains underleveraged.

Geopolitical caution still lingers, but the signals are shifting in India’s favour. On May 15, India unexpectedly offered to eliminate tariffs on all US goods - just weeks after raising them - suggesting momentum toward a broader trade deal. This followed a series of assertive geopolitical moves, including Vice President JD Vance’s April 20 meeting with Prime Minister Modi, a landmark $100bn partnership with Saudi Arabia, and the finalisation of a UK trade agreement. Together, these developments reflect India's growing global clout and strategic alignment with US interests. At the same time, Apple’s decision to shift all US-bound iPhone production to India underscores a deeper transformation: India is emerging not only as a critical supply chain alternative but also as a next-generation hub for manufacturing and innovation - extending beyond tech into areas like MedTech.

India is no longer just an export play. It is a launchpad for next-gen R&D, rapid clinical trials, and agile multi-market manufacturing. It offers speed, scale, and strategic leverage - what legacy models cannot deliver in today’s fractured global order.

In 2007, 60 years after its independence from Britain, India became a $1trn economy. Today, its GDP is ~$3.5trn and on track to exceed $6trn by 2030. India has surpassed Japan to become the world’s 4th largest economy and is set to overtake Germany by 2028. This is not a future market - it is the current opportunity.

The tendency of many US MedTech boards to treat India as peripheral to their global strategy is less a reflection of market fundamentals and more a symptom of outdated thinking. Too many decision-makers remain tethered to legacy paradigms - views shaped in an era when India was seen primarily as a low-cost manufacturing hub or a long-term “emerging” market. But that era has passed. The ground has shifted.

India is no longer emerging. It has emerged - with scale, sophistication, and strategic weight. It is now the world's most populous country, home to one of the fastest-growing healthcare markets, a thriving innovation ecosystem, and a tech-savvy, increasingly health-conscious population. From digital health to surgical robotics, Indian clinicians and entrepreneurs are no longer just users or followers - they are contributors, co-creators, and global competitors.

Boards that continue to overlook India risk more than missed growth; they risk strategic irrelevance. Market access strategies, clinical trial networks, regulatory engagement, and talent pipelines - India plays a central role in each. Companies that sideline India not only leave value on the table but also fall behind competitors who are already embedding the country into their core operating model.

In today’s MedTech landscape, India is not a geographic add-on. It is a strategic multiplier. Forward-looking leaders are already recalibrating. The question is no longer if India matters - it is how quickly your organisation can adapt to the new global reality where India is not optional, but essential.
 
In this Commentary

This Commentary argues that India is no longer optional for US MedTech - it is a strategic necessity. With its vast scale, rising healthcare demand, and growing innovation ecosystem, India offers opportunities for growth, R&D, and supply chain resilience. Succeeding there requires more than transactional engagement; it demands long-term partnerships, backed by CEO and board-level commitment. For MedTech leaders, understanding India’s fast-evolving landscape is essential - not just to access a major market, but to help shape the future of global health innovation and expand equitable access to care.
 
Strategic Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight

India is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s most pivotal healthcare markets - not just due to scale, but because of how care is being reimagined. With a population >1.4bn and a middle class expected to exceed 500m by 2030, demand for quality healthcare and advanced technologies is entering a phase of sustained, structural growth. Private spending is surging, and MedTech is leading the charge: currently a $12bn market, it is projected to surpass $50bn by 2030, within a broader $372bn healthcare sector.

At the centre of this transformation is a private sector that is not just expanding - it is innovating. Healthcare leaders like Apollo Hospitals , Narayana Health, and Fortis Healthcare are redefining global benchmarks through scale, tech integration, and clinical excellence.

Apollo Hospitals, founded in 1983 by Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, has built an ecosystem of >70 hospitals, ~5,000 pharmacies, and a digital health platform spanning diagnostics, telehealth, and AI-enabled care. With >125,000 heart surgeries annually - among the highest globally - Apollo is pushing digital frontiers, bringing advanced care to Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Led by Dr. Reddy’s four daughters and CEO Dr. Manhu Sasidhar, Apollo is setting the pace for tech-powered, inclusive healthcare.

Narayana Health, founded by Dr. Devi Shetty, offers a radically efficient model: high-quality, high-volume care delivered at a fraction of global costs. With >40 hospitals and a flagship Health City in Bengaluru, Narayana performs >18,000 cardiac surgeries annually with outcomes that rival top global institutions. Its digital and international footprint - from the Cayman Islands to a nationwide telemedicine network - reflects a model built for scale and impact.
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Narayana’s innovation extends beyond clinical delivery. It helped launch Yeshasvini, one of the world’s largest self-funded rural insurance schemes, and played a key role in Arogya Karnataka, aimed at universal health coverage. Most recently, it launched Narayana Aarogyam, a next-gen wellness centre in Bengaluru offering AI-driven diagnostics, 90-minute checkups, and personalised care - underscoring its pivot toward preventive health for India’s rising middle class.

Fortis Healthcare, meanwhile, is becoming a specialty care leader in neurology and spine, with strong digital capabilities and ~23,000 employees driving expertise in tertiary and quaternary care.

Together, these providers are not just catching up - they are leapfrogging global peers. By marrying scale with process innovation and advanced tech, they are redrawing the global healthcare map - and creating significant demand for robotics, AI diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and precision tools.

This private sector dynamism is reinforced by Ayushman Bharat, the world’s largest public health insurance programme, covering >500m people. India now offers a unique dual-market dynamic: premium private care scaling up, and public coverage expanding out - unlocking demand across the spectrum.

Regulatory reform is keeping pace. The Medical Device Rules (MDR 2017) introduced a risk-based framework aligned with global norms. As quality, data, and safety take centre stage, India is becoming a familiar, investable environment for companies with mature compliance systems.

Early movers like Siemens Healthineers and Philips are doubling down on R&D, manufacturing, and commercial operations in India. Yet many US MedTech players remain underexposed - held back by outdated views of price sensitivity or regulatory ambiguity. This is a costly misread. India is not a low-margin detour - it is a parallel frontier.

While the US MedTech market has matured - slower growth, squeezed margins, tougher competition - India is greenfield. Demand is accelerating, digital health is scaling, and infrastructure is still being built.

The instinct to compare India’s trajectory to the US is not just flawed - it is misleading. India is not retracing old paths; it is blazing new ones. For US MedTech firms, the choice is clear: lead or lag. In this market, passivity is not safe - it is risk, misjudged as strategy.
 
India: The Rising Powerhouse of Global MedTech

For much of the traditional MedTech establishment, India has long been cast in a familiar role: populous, price-sensitive, and peripheral - a market more tolerated than targeted, complex to navigate and rarely central to strategic thinking. For executives steeped in the logic of high-margin devices and legacy health systems across the US and other affluent markets, the notion that India could help define the future of MedTech has often felt not just unlikely, but incompatible with industry orthodoxy. That orthodoxy is now a risk.

India’s relevance in the emerging healthcare paradigm is no longer tethered to scale alone. It lies in its growing strategic leverage - not just as a market, but as a force multiplier for innovation. As global healthcare pivots toward digital-first, data-intelligent, and cost-sensitive models, India is increasingly where new rules are being written. To overlook this shift is to misread the momentum - and to underestimate where the next gravitational pull is forming.

1. India as a Deep-Tech Forge
India is no longer an emerging player in healthcare innovation - it is already powering the R&D engines of some of the world’s most advanced MedTech systems. At the convergence of elite engineering, robust digital infrastructure, and thriving innovation hubs, Indian cities like Bengaluru are building the future: AI-driven diagnostics, robotic surgeries, and cloud-native digital therapeutics are not exceptions - they are standard practice.

This is not imitation. It is leadership. What sets India apart is its ability to fuse technical depth with real-world healthcare needs, delivering solutions that are not only cutting-edge, but also frugal, scalable, and globally deployable. In a software-defined MedTech world, India is the crucible where cost, complexity, and innovation compress into export-ready breakthroughs.

2. India as a Data Powerhouse
Global regulators are demanding more diverse, real-world clinical evidence - and India delivers. Its unmatched population diversity and disease burden offer a live lab for inclusive datasets, AI training, and large-scale tech validation.

With digital health adoption accelerating and clinical research capabilities maturing fast, India is becoming a prime site for faster, cheaper, and globally relevant evidence generation. MedTech players rooted here not only cut development time and cost but boost regulatory credibility across both established and emerging markets.

3. India as a Strategic Manufacturing Hub
In today’s fractured supply chain landscape, resilience is the new gold. For US MedTechs, India offers more than low-cost assembly - it is a launchpad into high-growth markets across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Backed by Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes and rising standards, India is scaling up from basic production to high-credibility, export-grade manufacturing.

But the real differentiator? India’s geopolitical sweet spot. It is a neutral, democratic, technically skilled partner with global trade credibility. As the China+1 strategy gains steam, India stands out not just as an alternative - but as the answer.
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Yet this opportunity demands a shift in mindset. Legacy MedTech firms must move beyond offshore outsourcing and embrace strategic embeddedness. That means local leadership, on-the-ground investment, and the cultural agility to scale in a complex, non-Western market. The choice is stark: build where growth is emerging - or watch more adaptive competitors take the lead.
The Competitive Clock Is Ticking

The global MedTech race is accelerating - and legacy US players are falling behind in India. For decades, strategic focus has orbited around the familiar: affluent, regulation-heavy markets that reward incrementalism and shield leaders from systemic complexity. India, by contrast, has remained a blind spot - viewed largely as a cost centre or corporate social responsibility (CSR) afterthought, not a strategic imperative. But the ground is shifting. Growth in traditional markets is stalling, and relevance is being redefined - not in Boston or Basel, but in Bengaluru and beyond. European and Chinese firms are moving decisively, embedding themselves deeper into the Indian healthcare landscape through strategic partnerships, localised manufacturing, and tailored go-to-market strategies. The question is no longer whether to engage, but whether today’s leaders can unlearn fast enough to stay in the game.

European players like Smith & Nephew are strengthening their footprint by investing in local production and regulatory integration. In 2022, the UK-based MedTech inaugurated its first Asian manufacturing facility in Pune, Maharashtra, focused on orthopaedic implants for both domestic and global markets. This, not only slashes production and logistics costs but also streamlines regulatory navigation. More strategically, it aligns the company with India’s PLI schemes while positioning it closer to fast-growing regional markets in Asia and the Middle East.

Chinese companies, meanwhile, are capturing market share with disruptive pricing and products tailored to local needs. Mindray, a leading Chinese medical device manufacturer, has rapidly expanded across India by offering essential diagnostic and monitoring equipment at lower price points - without compromising on core functionality. By simplifying features for cost-sensitive and resource-constrained settings, and backing it with robust after-sales support, Mindray has become a preferred supplier across Tier II and Tier III hospitals. This mass-market playbook is gaining traction and redefining expectations for affordability and access in emerging healthcare systems.

At the same time, Indian MedTech start-ups - bolstered by increasingly sophisticated private capital - are scaling with speed. Dozee, a Bengaluru-based company, exemplifies this new wave of innovation. Its AI-powered, contactless vital signs monitoring system is helping hospitals modernise care delivery without the burden of ICU-level investments. With backing from Prime Venture Partners and investor Gokul Rajaram, Dozee has rolled out its Hospital Ward Automation Programme (HWAP) across hundreds of hospitals, especially in underserved regions. It is an example of how domestic innovation, when combined with smart capital and regulatory support, can deliver scalable, high-impact healthcare solutions.
These emerging players are not just surviving - they are rewriting the rules in a landscape increasingly defined by pro-innovation policy tailwinds, accelerating technical sophistication, and an urgent, unmet demand for context-specific healthcare solutions. Every year of hesitation by global MedTech incumbents does not just forfeit market share - it erodes their strategic leverage to influence standards, pricing architectures, regulatory frameworks, and models of care in what is fast becoming a bellwether market for the Global South.
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Those who move early will not just compete - they will codify the norms, forge enduring alliances with India’s top-tier hospitals, academic powerhouses, start-ups, and policymakers, and embed themselves in the next wave of global health innovation. For US firms, continued inertia is not just a missed opportunity - it is a slow slide into irrelevance in one of the most dynamic, politically influential, and strategically decisive healthcare arenas of the coming decades.
 
India Should Be on CEO and Board Agendas

For far too long, India has been relegated to the margins of strategic planning by US MedTech leadership - an afterthought in global roadmaps dominated by familiar, high-margin markets. That posture is not just outdated; it is strategically negligent. India’s scale, demographic churn, and accelerating economic trajectory demand focused, top-tier attention - not token visits, quarterly check-ins, or outsourced responsibility to regional teams operating without real authority. That playbook will not cut it anymore.

What is required is a pivot: direct CEO and board engagement, deep local investment, and long-term alliances with India’s most innovative health systems, research centres, and regulatory thinkers. This is not just about “entering” a market - it is about embedding within a proving ground for the future of global healthcare. In India, innovation is not a buzzword - it is a necessity. MedTech solutions built for this environment - where cost, scale, and clinical relevance must coexist - will become the blueprint for global competitiveness. The firms that recognise this will define the next era of MedTech. Those that do not, risk watching from the sidelines as the centre of gravity shifts - not gradually, but decisively.
  
Winning in India: Commit, Don’t Just Transact

For global MedTech leaders, the question is no longer if India matters - it is how deeply you are prepared to commit. Success is not about market access; it is about strategic reorientation. India does not respond to transactional overtures or perfunctory interest. This is a market that runs on trust, endurance, and presence - where meaningful partnerships are forged through time, not tactics. Deals of consequence are not won by intermediaries or fly-in executives armed with pitch decks. They are earned - patiently and persistently - by CEOs, boards, and leadership teams who show up, engage, and signal serious intent. The architects of Indian healthcare are not holding their breath for fly-in managers. They demand leadership with skin in the game, staying power at the table, and a vested commitment to long-term value creation. Anything less is just background noise.

Winning in India’s healthcare market demands high-level commitment and decisive action. First, align leadership by forming a board-backed India Task Force and refreshing market intelligence - mapping hospital networks, digital disrupters, and regulatory shifts. Establish an India Advisory Board of local and global experts to guide strategy and relationship-building.

Next, forge deep partnerships: co-develop solutions with leading hospital chains, collaborate with AI and diagnostics innovators, and tap into government-backed incentives through local manufacturing alliances.

In the medium term, localise R&D - set up innovation hubs focused on affordability and AI, leverage India’s robust clinical trial ecosystem, and design India-first products with global potential.

Long-term success hinges on full integration: embed India into global strategy and P&L, cultivate local leadership, and pursue targeted acquisitions to deepen market roots.

India will not reward half-measures. MedTech leaders who invest, engage, and help shape its healthcare future will secure a stake in one of the world’s most dynamic growth arenas.
 
Takeaways

India is no longer a “nice-to-have” - it is a strategic non-negotiable for any MedTech company serious about global relevance. With unmatched scale, breakneck innovation, and rising digital adoption, India is not just a growth market - it is where the future of healthcare is being built. From AI-driven diagnostics to efficient care models, India is pioneering solutions that will ripple far beyond its borders. At the same time, it offers a hedge against geopolitical shocks, supply chain fragility, and overexposure to legacy markets. For CEOs and boards, the message is clear: India must move from the sidelines to the centre of strategic focus. This is not a market to dip into - it is one to embed in. Early movers will shape the rules. Latecomers will scramble to stay relevant. The next chapter of global MedTech is being written in India. The only question is: will you be part of it - or play catch-up?

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