EPAM repositions India as co-innovation hub for life sciences, healthcare

EPAM bets on India as global co-innovation hub for AI-driven life sciences and healthcare expansion

EPAM Systems is repositioning India from a cost-led delivery base to a global co-innovation hub for life sciences and health care, as multinational clients increasingly seek data- and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven capabilities beyond traditional outsourcing, a senior company executive said on Wednesday.

 

Speaking on the sidelines of BioAsia, Greg Killian, who leads EPAM’s global life sciences and healthcare business, said India has emerged as the company’s fastest-growing region for the sector and one of its most strategically important global locations. EPAM’s India headcount has crossed 10,000 employees, making it the company’s largest delivery hub worldwide, he added.

 

Killian said the expansion in India has been almost entirely organic, driven by direct hiring rather than acquisitions, and closely aligned with where global pharmaceutical, biotech, and medtech clients are directing their investments.

 

“Clients are moving to India not just for information technology (IT) delivery, but for integrated development and innovation,” he said, adding that EPAM’s growth has tracked this shift in demand.

 

According to Killian, India is playing a growing role in early-stage drug discovery and development, particularly in biologics, where data analytics, high-performance computing, and AI are becoming central to identifying and advancing new therapies. While small-molecule chemistry is relatively mature, he said the next phase of biologics innovation is increasingly “digitally powered”, creating opportunities for India’s data and AI ecosystem to contribute earlier in the drug development lifecycle.

 

He noted that clinical trials will continue to be conducted on a global basis, with data generated across multiple geographies. However, India’s competitive advantage lies in its digital infrastructure, AI talent, and domain expertise, which are not uniformly available in other trial-intensive regions.

 

This positions the country to play a larger role in integrating, analysing, and operationalising clinical and scientific data, even if patient recruitment remains geographically diversified.

 

Beyond discovery, EPAM is expanding its India-led work in AI-enabled commercial operations and digital patient services, including tools that support real-time engagement between pharmaceutical companies, physicians and patients.

 

Killian said changing engagement models in health care is creating demand for digital platforms that combine regulatory, workflow, and patient-experience requirements.

 

EPAM is also increasing its focus on niche and personalised therapies such as cell and gene treatments, as well as digitally enabled medtech areas like robotic and data-driven surgery. These segments, he said, require complex, real-time data integration across supply chains, labs, and care settings, making digital engineering a critical enabler.

 

Over the next few years, EPAM plans to hire an additional 2,000-3,000 professionals in India at the company level while continuing to invest in talent development and client-linked innovation projects such as proof-of-concepts and minimum viable products. Killian said the emphasis is on moving talent up the value chain by combining engineering skills with deeper scientific, clinical, and commercial domain knowledge.

 

As of mid-February 2026, EPAM, which has a market capitalisation of about $5 billion, has expanded its India workforce from around 1,100 employees a decade ago to over 10,000, showing the country’s evolving role in the company’s global operating model.