Hyderabad 3rd preferred city in India by life sciences firms

Hyderabad: Hyderabad is positioned as the third most preferred city by life sciences (LS) companies in India, next only to Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR. Out of the total office leasing by LS firms in the country during 2019-22, Hyderabad recorded a share of 19 per cent with about 1.6 million sq ft of office space take-up. This was due to the presence of large LS clusters, grade A office spaces, quality R&D labs, incubation centers, and research institutions in the city.

According to a report by real estate consulting firm CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd, healthcare and pharmaceuticals sub sectors led the office space take-up by LS firms in Hyderabad over the past four years. About 57 per cent of the deal closures by LS firms in the city were led by small-sized deals of less than 50,000 sq ft).

The report also highlights Hyderabad attracting one of the biggest investments in 2022 by Biological E, who announced an investment of Rs 1,800 crore in Genome Valley to expand three manufacturing facilities.

Telangana leads with the highest number of US-FDA certified plants, followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Other states with a sizeable presence include Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. Further analysis of the type of operations revealed that while Gujarat is the topmost state for general manufacturing, Telangana is the leading state for analysis and API manufacturing.

Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & CEO - India, South-East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE India, said, "LS is one of the top alternate real estate choices for investors across the globe – a trend we have recorded over the past few years. In our latest APAC Investor Intentions Survey 2022, healthcare-related properties, including LS assets, were named the most popular alternate segment overtaking Data Centres (DCs) for the first time since the survey began.

Hyderabad remains one of the top cities in India to attract investments in LS sector."

Healthcare and medical devices were the prominent sub-sectors in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR during 2019-22, while pharmaceutical companies preferred Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai for office space take-up.

The report further highlights that as of 2019, Gujarat housed the highest number of WHO-GMP certified pharma manufacturing plants, followed by Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana. Further, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are also major manufacturing hubs.

On a pan-India basis, the report highlights that out of the total cumulated office space take up in India during 2019-22, American LS firms led the leasing activity with a share of about 56 per cent followed by Europe, Middle East & African (EMEA) companies (24 per cent), domestic players (19 per cent) and APAC firms (1 per cent).

Expansions constituted more than half of the space take-up by American LS corporates during 2019-22, followed by new entrants (30 per cent). Space take-up by EMEA LS firms was also largely led by expansions (83 per cent) followed by new entrants (13 per cent).