Monday, July 26, 2010

Biotechnology and Its Power to Face Global Economic Crisis


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Biotechnology has immense power to improve human health, face environmental challenges, and improve the way the world does business. A recently published report examines the future outlook of biotechnology in the global economy and demonstrates policies that could maximize its benefits.

Biotech-based drugs provide greater health advantages as compared to their traditional counterparts. It is estimated that by 2015 virtually all new drugs, about 50% of the world's major crops which are globally produced and different everyday products including food additives, plastics, fuels and detergents, will be produced using biotechnology. New crop varieties developed by this modern technology require less water, pesticides, and fertilizers and will increase global food production.

This branch of medical science is no doubt, making huge progress in varieties of related fields and has innumerable applications in them. However, many barriers stand in the way of their development and commercialization. These include technological challenges as well as regulations, adequate investment, human resources, social acceptance, and market structures.

The report covers that though 75% of the potential economic contribution of business biotechnology R&D expenditure is related to agriculture and industry, only 6% of the total is actually contributed in these two areas. Meantime, 85% of the expenditure goes to health and medicines, with a 25% potential return. This detail signifies the lack of interests and investments in other fields of biotechnology leaving health sectors. But the solution cannot be based on any sort of compromises made to reduce health expenditures. Indeed substantial encouragement with active involvement of public and private investment in other applications can be a better solution.

The global economic crisis could have collapsed bioeconomy if biotechnological engineers had not used the opportunity to focus on alternative energy and sustainable agriculture to address long-term growth. As there were marginal capitals available to invest in biotechnology R&D with high-risk start-up firms, it would have fallen as victims to the global crisis.




For more information on Biotechnological Plants and the benefits of Pharmaceutical engineering please visit the mentioned website

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