This study focuses on the private Sector firms at the heart of innovation systems. To understand better the product development capabilities of India's nascent biotech sector and the strategies used by private firms to survive and grow amid a myriad of challenges related to operating in a developing world context, we studied 21 of the subcontinent's home-grown firms (Supplementary Methods online). The results reveal a sector preparing not only for future growth, but also, in some cases, for developing innovative products for global markets. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed, independent, publicly available research on health biotech firms in India based on face-to-face interviews with company representatives.