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Informist, Thursday, Jun. 11, 2026

 

--Biocon Ghatnekar: Actively using AI in early stage drug discoveries 

--CONTEXT: Comments by Biocon CTO Mandar Ghatnekar at ASSOCHAM Pharma Summit 

--Biocon Ghatnekar: Leveraging AI for more accurate demand forecast 

 

By Shakshi Jain and Gunjan Rajput

 

NEW DELHI – Pharmaceutical major Biocon Ltd. is actively leveraging artificial intelligence in early-stage drug discoveries and for more accurate forecast of demand, Chief Technology Officer Mandar Ghatnekar said Thursday at the Pharma Summit and Awards 2026 hosted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.

 

"Our focus in biosimilar development has been more on the development, discovery side, not on the engineering side as much... On the early-stage discovery in the biosimilar space, we have been very active and very aggressive in using AI," Ghatnekar said. AI has not only reduced the time-to-market for the company's products but also cut the cost of development significantly, he added.

 

The Bengaluru-headquartered company began its AI journey roughly a year ago, both in terms of enterprise deployment across areas such as finance, human resources, and procurement, as well as in research and development. The company has tied up with several large information technology services firms as well as niche players who have specific capabilities in certain areas of its value chain, with some specialising in R&D.

 

"I would say we now are in places where we will get success," Ghatnekar said. "We are seeing green shoots of actual benefits being accrued. But I would still say that if there is a 10-step process that we are applying AI to, only 3-4 steps are where AI is actually giving you out-of-the-box solutions. The remaining 4, 5, or 6 steps are still relying on the human being."

 

Presenting an industry perspective, Ghatnekar said most Indian companies are gingerly exploring the use of AI in production. "Indian companies cannot afford to have that percentage of failure rate. So, we want to take up a much more measured approach towards this and we want to ensure that the use cases that we pick up for AI deployment are more sure to give us success."  End

 

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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