Business development is an important part of running any successful company in today’s dynamic high-tech environment. A well-planned, well-managed company can have a substantial, positive social impact on the local and wider economy. For that reason, it is very important to learn how to best develop a promising business in the biotech industry.
There are many types of businesses that can be developed within the biotech industry sector. ‘Biotech’ is a shorthand term for a biotechnological business. The most common type of biotech business is in the food and agricultural industries. The products of agricultural biotech businesses aim to use the medium of non-traditional, technological processes to produce an edible product such as animal feed, or a biotechnological product, such as medical preparations and vaccines. These products can also be categorized as plant biotechnology and microbial biotechnology.
Agricultural biotechnology is also applied to changing the genetic composition of plants, such as genetically modifying plant species, with the objective of fixing certain otherwise variable characteristics. Genetic modifying might, for example, aim to produce more of a specific crop in a limited amount of space, increase disease resistance, yield or lengthen growing season. This technology is used not only in agriculture but in other industries such as food processing, petrochemicals, and biotherapeutics. Biotechnology has been developed and is now being used increasingly in our food supply.
An example of a pharmaceutical biotechnology application is when a company changes the genetic composition of cells by inserting a gene from a bacterium to enhance its growth. This is how some antibacterial, or antibiotic drugs are developed.
Cell culture is another form of biotechnology. In this form of biotechnology, cells are cultured in the laboratory from an egg. Once they are grown in the laboratory, they are used to create animal and human cells that are needed for research or other applications. Some examples of cell culture include pig and human cell lines, mouse cell lines, rat and chicken cell lines, and bovine kidney cell lines. These biological substances are mostly used in experimental product research and are not the end products themselves.
Because the biotech industry is so fast paced, there are many opportunities for scientists to enter the industry and start new biotech businesses. There are currently biotech companies using the methods mentioned above to develop innovative products for the health care market. A new product area in this market is that of personalized medicine, which uses a patient’s genetic profile to customize and improve medical treatment. Genetic engineering is opening up new fields of enterprise every year.
Although these are exciting new possibilities, in terms of biotech business development itself, funding is always a hurdle for a fledgling company if not getting help from someone like lifesci advisors. The uncharted waters of this industry bring a level of uncertainty and risk that is not attractive to ordinary banking corporations, so a business development bank that specializes in technological start-ups may need to be approached. Although the biomedical industry sparks controversy and raises questions of ethics, most businesses are using biotech to aim to relieve painful health conditions for ordinary people. For example, scientists in the biomedical field can be employed to help create new therapies using microorganisms to address inflammation and systemic bacterial infections, which have a history of chronicity in some cases. This can be a good use of biotech business development, which will result in a viable solution for some of society’s chronic diseases.
