The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has seen its budget climb from ₹2,732.13 crore in the Budget Estimates for 2024-25 to ₹3,125.50 crore in 2025-26, and now to ₹4,000.00 crore for 2026-27. That 2026-27 figure works out to roughly a 21 percent jump over the Revised Estimate of ₹3,150.00 crore for 2025-26.
Alongside the money, the government has rolled out new schemes to make research grants easier to access and more competitive to win.
Reworking the grants architecture
ICMR has also been working to widen and strengthen the whole ecosystem around health research funding. It has rationalised and expanded its intramural and extramural grant structures so that the funding a project gets actually matches its scale, maturity, risk level and how close it is to real-world application. New follow-on grants have also been introduced specifically to build on leads that come out of earlier funded research.
Here’s how the funding tiers currently break down: Small or ANVESHAN Grants go up to ₹2 crore, Intermediate or NISCHAYAK ANVESHAN Grants run from ₹2 crore to ₹8 crore, the First-in-the-World Challenge offers stage-linked support up to ₹8 crore, and Centres for Advanced Research can get up to ₹15 crore. Between them, these cover investigator-led research, proof-of-concept work, validating new interventions, high-risk high-reward innovation, multidisciplinary projects and larger advanced research programmes.
New strategic funding for medical colleges
To supplement research budgets at public medical colleges and hospitals, ICMR has rolled out several strategic funding initiatives:
The Top-Tier Global Leadership Funding Scheme is a flagship push to help the top ten NIRF-ranked medical institutions climb into global research leadership. Then there’s the ICMR-National Medical Commission (NMC) Joint Call, aimed at the top 100 NIRF-ranked institutions, which funds innovation and implementation research to lift the quality of medical education, with particular focus on competency-based teaching, digital learning and reforming how students are assessed.
There’s also a dedicated initiative to strengthen intramural research at three Central Government Medical Colleges in Delhi. Separately, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), working with ICMR and the Gates Foundation, has launched Mission for Advancement in High-Impact Areas (MAHA)-Medical Technology, or महा MedTech. This one’s aimed at speeding up innovation in India’s medical technology sector, cutting dependence on expensive imports, and making affordable, high-quality medical technology more widely accessible.
More initiatives: clinical trials, devices and palliative care
The ICMR Clinical Care Excellence Initiative is running multi-centre clinical trials focused on non-communicable diseases. And there’s a special call for proposals to set up an ICMR Centre for Advanced Research (CAR) dedicated to developing priority medical devices and diagnostic technologies, ones addressing unmet clinical needs that ICMR identified through extensive consultation with stakeholders. The bigger goal here is to build affordable, accessible, indigenous healthcare technology for wider public benefit and long-term self-reliance in the MedTech space.
Getting to this priority list wasn’t a quick exercise either, it involved eminent clinicians working across tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and the result is a curated list of roughly 100 priority medical devices and diagnostic technologies built around actual unmet clinical needs.
On top of that, ICMR is running a multistate implementation research study aimed at improving the reach of high-quality palliative care. The goal is to build, roll out and evaluate a palliative care model that fits into India’s existing healthcare system, and to check whether it’s cost-effective and workable enough to justify scaling it nationally.
Backing frontier technology in medicine
ICMR is also funding a number of extramural research projects in frontier areas: recombinant vaccines, biologics, cell and gene therapies, and robotics and AI-based tools. Twenty-two frontier technology projects are underway so far, including CAR-T cell therapy, robotics-based targeted cancer therapy, cardiac massaging techniques and root canal treatment innovations.
Beyond that, ICMR has backed the indigenous development of 97 medical devices and diagnostic technologies, and helped bring down costs for 11 of them. More than 60 innovative projects have received support through the First in the World challenge.
Biopharma SHAKTI: building a domestic biopharma hub
To strengthen the domestic biopharmaceutical industry and make it more competitive globally in biologics and biosimilars, the government has announced the Biopharma SHAKTI scheme, backed by an outlay of ₹10,000 crore spread over five years. The aim is to build a globally competitive domestic ecosystem for biologics and biosimilars that supports affordable healthcare in India, while positioning the country as a global hub for biopharma manufacturing and innovation.
The scheme works by funding research and development, building up clinical trial infrastructure, and encouraging academia, research institutions and industry to collaborate more closely, all in service of boosting domestic innovation and manufacturing in biopharmaceuticals.
Over time, this is expected to cut India’s reliance on imports and grow its footprint in the global biopharmaceutical market. Looking further ahead, the goal is to move India toward genuine innovation leadership, including AI-designed biologics, advanced therapies and precision medicine, and to make all of it more affordable and accessible.
Key Takeaway: The sharp increase in ICMR’s budget for 2026–27, along with the introduction of expanded research funding mechanisms and strategic initiatives, reflects the Government’s focus on strengthening India’s health research and innovation ecosystem.
By supporting advanced medical research, multi-centre clinical trials, indigenous development of medical devices and diagnostics, frontier technologies such as cell and gene therapies, AI and robotics, and the ₹10,000 crore Biopharma SHAKTI scheme, these measures aim to promote affordable healthcare, reduce import dependence, enhance medical education and research capacity, and position India as a global hub for biopharmaceutical and medical technology innovation while advancing long-term public health and scientific self-reliance.
M.C.Q.
Question 1: Which organisation is the apex body for the formulation, coordination, and promotion of biomedical research in India?
- A. Department of Biotechnology (DBT)
- B. National Medical Commission (NMC)
- C. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
- D. Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC)
Question 2: The Biopharma SHAKTI scheme announced by the Government of India primarily aims to:
- A. Promote pharmaceutical exports through tax incentives.
- B. Develop a globally competitive domestic ecosystem for biologics and biosimilars.
- C. Establish new AIIMS institutions across India.
- D. Expand health insurance coverage under Ayushman Bharat.
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