Chemical Industry Biotechnology

The chemical industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the United States and Europe. Currently, over 50,000 chemicals and formulations are produced in the United States. The consumption of chemical products by industry gives these products a degree of anonymity as they usually reach consumers in altered forms or as parts of other goods.

Biotechnology has a limited, though varied, role in chemical production. The production of some chemicals now produced by fermentation, such as amino acids and industrial enzymes, may be improved using biotechnology. Similarly, biotechnology can be used to produce enzymes with altered characteristics (e.g., greater” stability in harsh solvents or greater heat resistance). In many instances, biotechnology products will probably be developed and introduced by major firms without the fanfare that has accompanied other biotechnology developments and, like much of chemical production, will remain unknown to those outside the industry.

In the very long run, biotechnology may have a major impact in shifting the production of fuel and bulk chemicals away from reliance on nonrenewable resources (e.g., oil) and toward renewable resources (e.g., biomass). However, current work in this field appears to be limited, in part, because the international price of oil has remained too low to encourage investment in alternatives, and, in part, because the chemical industry throughout the world has restructured during the last 10 years, moving away from bulk chemical production and toward the production of specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural products.

Agriculture Biotechnology

Biotechnology has the potential to be the latest in a series of technologies that have led to astonishing increases in the productivity of world agriculture in recent decades. Biotechnology can increase food production by contributing to further gains in yield, by lowering the cost of agricultural inputs;and by contributing to the development of new high-value-added products to meet the needs of consumers and food processors. These potential products include agricultural input (e.g., seeds and pesticides), veterinary diagnostics and therapeutics, food additives and food processing enzymes, more nutritious foods, and crops with improved food processing qualities. Thus far, R&D has focused on crops and traits that are easiest to manipulate, particularly single-gene traits in certain vegetable crops. As technical roadblocks are lifted, research is likely to increase and spread to other crops and other traits.

In the United States, DBCs are applying biotechnology to agriculture, and well-established firms are adapting biotechnology to their existing research programs. The ability to profit from new products depends on a variety of factors, such as the potential size of the market for these products, the existence of substitutes, the rate at which new products and technologies are adopted, the potential for repeat sales using patent or technical protection, the existence of regulatory hurdles, and the prospect for consumer acceptance of these new foods.