Bio - Vision for Viksit Bharat Bioeconomy is a knowledge-economy driven by Biotechnology research and innovation. It holds the potential to catapult the nation's growth trajectory into a developed economy ensuring inclusive and sustainable progress. Propelling a green-technology bio-revolution and building new institutional frameworks for shared scientific goals are the key strategies. We envision the bioeconomy to grow to $ 300 + Bn and contribute to 5-6% of GDP. We aim to achieve this by catalyzing a green economic growth through new manufacturing paradigms driven by Biotechnology Biomanufacturing. Petrochemicals to Bioinspired Innovations Throughout various stages of evolution, human needs have been largely met from nature, be it food, water, clothing, shelter, medicines, fuel, materials. However nature could not meet the scale and demands of the rising human population. This drove the shift to petro- based industrial processes for production at scale. As a result, today, over 40 billion tons of CO2 is emitted into atmosphere contributing to climate change and producing long-term health and environmental damages. The world is now looking for bio-inspired innovations to propel the economies while advancing sustainability, reducing energy and material consumption. Biomanufacturing provides a viable opportunity for a green production technology replacing traditional chemical synthesis and hazardous industrial processes in almost all domains. This technology relies hugely on engineering the invisible tiny microbes and human or animal cells/cell-free systems to produce new solutions and products. Deep tech innovations originating at the convergence of genomics, synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, Al, precision fermentation coupled to enhanced speed of DBTL cycles of the biofoundries holds the key for transition of the cells and tiny creatures into biofactories. Bio E3 Policy The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, with the approval of the Cabinet launched the BioE3 policy to catapult this transition. The Policy is formulated and being implemented by DBT jointly with its PSU Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). BioE3 Policy for a green, clean, prosperous, and self-reliant India empowers Indian institutions and industries to engage in transformative innovation through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and international collaborations. Several Biofoundries, Biomanufacturing hubs are being established across the country as Bioenablers forming the key backbone of this initiative to enable start-ups, SMEs, industries and academia with access to shared infrastructure/facilities and resources for pilot and pre-commercial scale biomanufacturing of bio-based products. Bio-AI hubs, one of the enablers for building data-driven, cutting-edge, programmatic research support for the Biomanufacturing initiative provides critical and novel research leads impacting Health, Agriculture and Environment. India’s first Biofoundry network a landmark initiative aimed at transforming the country’s biotechnology landscape serving as a national platform to support bioproduction scale-up at academia has been launched as a first set of implementation. It also brings together 15 cutting-edge Biomanufacturing Platforms mostly at industry and industry-academia facilities across India, offering shared infrastructure to start-ups, SMEs, industries, and academic institutions. These centers will support pilot and pre-commercial scale up of technologies across diverse sectors, including microbial biomanufacturing, sustainable agriculture, smart proteins, functional foods, precision biotherapeutics, marine biotechnology, carbon capture, and next-generation cell and gene therapies. In addition, several discovery and bridging the gap research programs are being undertaken in the six thematic verticals envisioned. Bio-based chemicals, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), and Enzymes Functional Foods and Smart Proteins Precision Biotherapeutics (monoclonal antibodies, mRNA therapeutics, cell & gene therapy) Climate resilient agriculture (agribiologicals) Biofuels and Carbon capture Futuristic marine and space research Reimagining Food, Health & Materials Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy contributing to around 18% of the GDP and over 50% of the population employed in Agri and allied sectors impacting livelihoods. The major contributor to agricultural productivity and our food security is nitrogenous fertilizers which also leads to green house gas emissions, air pollution, potable water contamination, biodiversity loss. India is the second largest consumer of nitrogenous fertilizers globally with 19.44 million metric tons. Biomanufacturing of engineered/genetically-edited microbes have started replacing fertilizers in cereal productions. Transgenic crops developed through molecular breeding and marker-assisted selections had delivered biotic/abiotic stress resilient crops, improved yields and harvest without synthetic chemicals and pesticides in addition to our continued efforts on gene edited and GM crops. Livestock production uses 77% of all agricultural land (FAO, 2020) and deforestation is rapidly increasing globally reducing nature's carbon capture ability for making more land for farming. Cultivated meat, a new food-technology based on biomanufacturing of animal cells is already a reality in countries like Singapore and is under approvals in the US. Precision biotherapeutics are transforming healthcare by enabling highly targeted, personalized treatments tailored to an individual's genetic profile, lifestyle, and disease characteristics, with significant potential for cancer, autoimmune disorders, and rare genetic diseases. In India, advances in genomics, biotechnology, digital health, and Artificial Intelligence are accelerating the development of safer, more effective, and scalable therapies, particularly in mRNA therapeutics, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), and Cell and Gene Therapies (CGTs). The versatile mRNA platform, proven during the COVID-19 pandemic, is expanding into cancer, infectious diseases, genetic disorders, and gene editing, supported by growing indigenous capabilities in nanobiotechnology and biomanufacturing. mAbs continue to be a cornerstone of precision medicine for oncology, autoimmune diseases, and emerging infections, with India strengthening its position through biosimilars. CGTs, which directly address the genetic and molecular causes of disease, represent the next frontier of therapeutic innovation. DBT-supported programmes, such as the National Biopharma Mission (NBM), have substantially strengthened India's capabilities in these emerging therapies by supporting translational research, technology platforms, GMP manufacturing, and industry-academia collaborations. These efforts have enabled the development of indigenous biologics and advanced therapeutics, including India's first homegrown CAR-T cell therapy (NexCAR19) and has established a pipeline for more. The bulk of materials used extensively in healthcare, personal care, clothing, construction and transportation are petrochemical-based raw materials such as wax, plastics, nylon, polyesters are extracted from animals/plants with poor scalability collagen, cellulose, hyaluronic acid etc. Biosynthesis of biodegradable biomaterials and their sustainable manufacturing is the potential of biomanufacturing. For instance globally around 390 Mn tonnes of plastic is produced and India is the largest importer. The utility of plastics is across sectors- from disposables to medical devices, packaging, automotive, cosmetics etc. In this, only less than 1% (about 2.2 Mn tonnes) is only biodegradable plastics setting the top priority for bioplastics biomanufacturing. Biofuels provide renewable alternative for achieving the global climate change targets of net zero by 2050 especially for hard-to electrify sectors. First gen (1G) biofuels are produced by microbial fermentation of edible feedstocks and accounts for most of the bioenergy produced today. With the on-going debated on food vs fuel security, 2G biofuels based on lignocellulosic biomass from residues is being researched extensively. 3G and 4G biofuels based on microalgae & cyanobacteria biomass and engineered microbes respectively are emerging research frontiers. Policy to incentivize 2G /3G/4G biofuels will help accelerate the bioenergy biomanufacturing without compromising on agricultural productivity for food. BioE3 Policy (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) 2024 Department of Bold Transformation (DBT) Pursuing with our ambitious targets for research and innovation in Biotechnology, this pioneering policy is being implemented to reimagine food, health, fuel and environment in a bio-way employing living systems as factories for ensuring sustainability. We are working with various stakeholders across academia, industry, start-ups to build a green planet in which there would be milk without cows, fuels without crude oil, green chemicals, meat without slaughter, medicines tailored to individuals, chronic ailments being cured, plants edited to make them climate-smart and nutritious and reaching out to space for novel biotech experiments. This article is written by Dr Rajesh S Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. [Published in DREAM 2047 Major National Scientific Missions & Programmes (June-July 2026 / Vol. 06) : A magazine by Department of Science & Technology, GoI]