Biotechnology has benefited healthcare industry
SYED AIJAZUDDIN 27th MARCH 2006
The
Biotechnology’s relevance
to healthcare industry has received a lot of public attention since the founding of Genentech in 1976 - the first genetic engineering company. However, the focus has been profound after the accomplishment of human genome mapping and development of cloning technologies along with the use of information technology in the past a few years.
Its growth has been phenomenal as from nowhere it has established its niche and found favours from venture capitalists and expanding every day all over the world.
The
biotechnology has huge potentials and some of the fields where it has been quite in vogue for sometime. These areas are agriculture (GMO), environmental/industrial, enzymes, gene therapy, genetic engineering, genomics, bio-informatics, antibody technologies, bio pharmaceuticals, drug discovery and molecular diagnostics etc.
There are hundreds of biotechnology companies, but only a few them have three quarter of the share of the total market more US $ 50 billion. It shows it is still monopoly of a handful of companies mostly located in USA.
It is interesting to note, that the majority of the biotechnology market is for healthcare, and as per industry’s estimate it is more than 80 %. The agriculture sector is about 2-3 %.
The biotechnology industry is really come of an age that too in a short period of three decades or so. Even though, It is not reached fruition and maturity as yet, as every day newer advances are reported and its potentials are to be fully exploited.
Its benefits are unequivocally commercialized and utilized by healthcare industry and is paying dividends.
With convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology,
unprecedented progress is on anvil, which will open yet new vistas of technology for the benefit of the mankind. And the revenue it would generate is unprecedented for all sectors in general and healthcare in particular.