Chapter 29 : Sectors and Markets

Abstract:

The early euphoria of biotechnology 20 to 30 years ago was strongly science driven, and its products were largely expected in the health care sector. Maturity in the intervening years has directed attention increasingly toward bringing products to market and to widening the range of sectors within which biotechnology innovation can be applied. Consequently this chapter is intended to illustrate only a few current trends in commercial biotechnology, without laying claim to being comprehensive. One of the many omissions in the chapter—biomaterials and biomimetics—is treated briefly as a comment on how efforts to mimic nature (biodiversity) are leading to biotechnology innovations. Biotechnology is now established as a robust, reliable, and relatively low-risk technology and is capable of being implemented on a large scale and across the full range of industrial sectors. Market contributions of biotechnology products can be categorized as (i) sales of new products directly attributable to the use of modern biotechnology, (ii) sales of products manufactured by improved processes that make direct use of modern biotechnology (direct impact, e.g., recombinant products), and (iii) sales of products manufactured by improved processes using the products of biotechnology arising in other industries (indirect impact, e.g., biocatalysts). Recent estimates of biotechnology markets, expressed as the shares of worldwide and forecasts for 2005 are shown in a table for seven major industrial sectors.