By Joseph Pategou
In recent years, technology has advanced dramatically, bringing new possibilities in terms of innovation. It has led to the creation of biotechnology companies. Biotechnology is the use of biological processes, organisms or systems to manufacture products. These are intended to improve the quality of human life.
The biotechnology world can be divided into four streams, namely, Blue Biotechnology that deals with the application of Biotechnology to marine and aquatic life; Green Biotechnology, which is applied to agricultural processes; Red Biotechnology that is applied to medical processes and White Biotechnology, applied to industrial processes.
Exponential industry growth
In 2015, the global biotechnology market reached more than US$ 330 billion and is expected to hit US$ 775.2 billion with a 9.9% CAGR from 2016 to 2024. Many factors are responsible for this.
First, the growing demand for agricultural food products like wheat, rice, sugarcane, and beans in countries such as US, China, and India. This will propel the growth of the bio-agriculture sector to reach US$ 27.46 billion in 2018.
Geographically, the US has always led this industrys market with more than US$ 137.4 billion revenue share in 2015. Germany, China and Brazil and Mexico are other countries that lead this market.
Private companies in the industry
When you look more precisely at the biotechnology landscape in Europe, more than 90% are private companies. The number of employees varies greatly between companies but 70% of healthcare Biotech companies employ less than 50 persons which represent more than 58,000 jobs in Europe. These companies have generated a revenue of USD$24 billion and have invested nearly US$ 5-6 billion in 2014. These companies create value for society, and more than 300 million patients benefit from Biotech-derived medicines worldwide. This process contributes to 50% of medicines in the pharmaceutical pipeline and 20% of all marketed medicines that are manufactured.
In the wake of this booming industry, companies are adopting different strategies to enter or increase their global biotechnology market share through mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances or outsourcing of activities. For example, Innate Pharma and AstraZeneca finalised a record deal which could reach more than 1B on the cancer drug, IPH2201. Each category of the biotechnology industry is a tremendous force for societys wellbeing. Many examples around the world already illustrate the value this technology brings.
Biotechnology and agriculture
In India and China, before Bt cotton was introduced, the amount of pesticide used for cotton was the highest for any crop ever. This resulted in contamination, human poisoning, and pesticide resistance. Seven years after the introduction of Bt cotton, the use of pesticide decreased by more than 50% in these countries. Australia also started using Bt cotton. This has reduced the use of insecticide by 89% over the last decade, with some crops not requiring any insecticide. The results have shown better economic performance and an improvement in the quality of farmerslives.
Green biotechnology can help farmers with crop production. In 2013, the first Biotech drought-tolerant maize was planted in the United States. In Africa, Maize is the main food source for more than 300 million people, the continent is frequently affected by drought. The hope for a drought-tolerant maize is therefore crucial as drought leads to crop failure, hunger, and poverty. To tackle this issue, African farmers, leaders, and scientists created a Public-Private Partnership called Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) to develop drought-tolerant and insect-protected maize.
Revolutionising the pharmaceutical industry
For decades, Red Biotechnology has been at the forefront of developing cures to fight disease. The first step taken up was in 1885 by Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux. They used biotechnology to produce the first vaccine. Now other companies like uniQure are shaping the space with gene therapy technology (which received acceptance from the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency) for Haemophilia treatment.
Even though this process has contributed immensely to various sectors, numerous challenges need to be surmounted. Governments need to take an initiative to sensitise masses and strengthen regulations in order to benefit from Biotechnology.
Governments take notice
Uganda Banana is a great illustration of this. In the past, Banana crop yield was declining due to crop diseases such as Black Sigatoka. To come up with a solution, the Ugandan government opened the National Agricultural Biotechnology Center. Post its foundation, phenomenal progress has been made. However, due to lack of biosafety regulations and opponents of biotechnology, these innovations have slowed down.
The Biotechnology landscape definitely has a bright future and is a force for good that needs to be scaled up at a global level. For the European Commission, biotechnology companies are and will be huge contributors to the EU Economy. In the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, the World Economic Forum identified Biotechnology as an essential instrument to solve human issues.
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