Biotechnology:
h o me c a r e ma r k e t r e p o r t

Smart science to improve lives™

Introduction
The global pandemic has accelerated
growth in the home care industry.
Consumers are more aware of hygiene
priorities and self-care than ever before,
and their demand for products that
improve both cleanliness and wellness
at home, from laundry detergents toantibacterial cleaners, has rocketed.
As product demand has grown, so hasinterest in product ingredients. Today’s
consumers are incredibly aware of theenvironmental impact of their choices
and are expanding their desire to be
more sustainable into areas of theirlives that were previously untouched bysuch expectations. That means homecare cannot avoid the trends othersectors have had to embrace. They
must find ways to improve sustainability– from ingredients to manufacturing
processes without reducing productperformance. That is fueling a greaterinterest in biotechnology as a potential
route to achieving innovative newdevelopments that satisfy consumer
demands.
As a result, the home care sector has
become one of the most promisingareas for biotechnology innovation
within the broader chemicals industry.
What is a niche option for incremental
sustainability gains today, is expected
to be a fundamental toolset for future
innovation in the search for biobased ingredients that can match theperformance and efficacy of thosecurrently based on petrochemicals. This
has led to parallels frequently being
drawn between the home care industry
and the personal care industry, whichdisplays some similarities, particularly
when it comes to customer preferencesand expectations around sustainability
and performance. But whilst personalcare is largely a discretionary sector,
home care is based on commodity
purchases. That matters because pricecan be a lower priority than efficacy for
personal care customers. In home care

price is a significant variable for choices.
And whilst new innovations are always
exciting, they still need to fit the customer
spend profile in this market. Biotechnologyderived ingredients can be expensive anddo not always achieve this outcome.
This is one reason why they still only
account for a small percentage of the total
ingredients in this sector. But there aremany others as well, including the ability
to achieve production at scale, and theability to be driven purely by customer
demand rather than what effects available
organisms/plants can offer.
What is clear is that if these barriers can be
reduced or overcome, home care companies
will find new ways to meet the growing
sustainability and performance requirementsof their customers either through brand new
biotechnology-derived ingredients or equallyeffective biotechnology replacements for
those already in use.
This report will explore biotechnology’s
opportunity in the home care industry; what
potential it has to help companies address
the product and reputational expectationsof their customers; the barriers currently
preventing that from happening at sufficientscale; and recommendations for how thosebarriers can be reduced or removed. Our
hope is that this document begins a different
conversation about the crossover between
home care and biotechnology – one which
recognizes the limits to what biotechnology
can achieve in this space, but also seeks tomaximise the potential that does exist.

Introduction | 3

What isbiotechnology?
For the purposes of this report, we
define biotechnology as the use of nonanimal living organisms’ cellular andbiomolecular processes to develop
products for industrial use. Biotechnology
takes advantage of the ability of certain
living organisms to take in a substance orsubstances and, via their inbuilt biologicalprocesses, convert them into usefulindustrial products.
It opens the possibility for a wide rangeof new ingredients to be derived from
biological feedstocks, that could replace
ones that require chemical manufacturing
processes or are derived frompetrochemical feedstocks.
Whilst there is a variety of terminology in
use across the home care sector, for the
purposes of this report we will be using two
main key terms:

4 | What is biotechnology

Bio-based products/ingredients –products/ingredients derived from non-animal living and renewable materials such as
crops. The means by which these raw materials
produce products/ingredients include bothchemical and non-chemical processes.
Biotechnology-derived products ingredients –these are also derived from non-animal living
raw materials but are converted into products/
ingredients solely through biotechnology
processing.

Biotechnology
in home care
The first sustainable home care products
were hygiene products designed to be
more environmentally friendly, whichappeared on the professional market
in the early 1990s. At the time, thesetechnologies generally did not perform
especially well and were not unanimously
accepted by a marketplace that had yet
to embrace the concepts of sustainability
and environmental care. Since then, andwith a more receptive audience, theirdemand has grown and reached a point
where their use is mandated in manyenvironments. At the same time, the listof chemical ingredients historically usedin home care products and which are now
considered undesirable, of concern, orare even banned, is continuing to grow.
Their removal must be compensated using
new substances or technologies. This has
led to the innovation and development ofseveral innovative new technologies thatenable products to match efficacy withsustainability across the wider home careindustry.

Biotechnology is one of the most importantof these, and significant efforts have now
made it possible to obtain as good, oreven better levels of cleaning performanceusing biotechnological cleaning products.
This has brought home care into a newstage of development. For example,
while traditional chemical cleaners havethe ability to solubilise or emulsify dirt,
biotechnology-derived cleaning productsthat contain enzymes have the ability to‘break’ and remove dirt through hydrolysis
and biodegradation, making them more
effective. This action also offers ongoing
residual activity beyond the short periodof mechanical action applied during
the actual cleaning activity. In short,biotechnology cleaning products do not
simply make dirt and stains more soluble,
so that you can mechanically wipe or washthem away; they break down the molecularcomponents of dirt, and continue to workand clean long after they have been
applied.
Today, due to their ability to match efficacy
with sustainability, biotechnology featuresin a much broader range of home careproducts than ever before. In laundry
detergents, enzymes break down stains
like protein, starches, and fats, making
clothes cleaner. Biosurfactants havestarted to replace chemical surfactants,
offering the same outcomes but without
affecting water quality or possibly irritating
people’s skin. Microbial cleaners (alsoknown as probiotic cleaners) are growing
rapidly in the market. And bacteriophages(viruses that kill bacteria), which have beenused in the medical industry for more thana century, are now being considered foruse in cleaning products that can disrupt
and kill only harmful, targeted bacteria,
without disrupting entire microbiomes.
Progress in this sector therefore has beeneffective but more is required. Demandremains high for new technologies andapproaches that will provide effective
and sustainable solutions for challenges
that remain unsolved in the home careindustry today. Biotechnology has madea significant impact and is expected tocontinue to offer innovative contributions inthis field.

Biotechnology in home care | 5

Biotechnology
drivers andopportunities inhome care
The driving force behind productdevelopment decisions in home care isconsumer buying patterns. These havechanged dramatically since the COVID-19
pandemic.
COVID affected consumer sentiment andpurchase behaviour globally. Prior to thepandemic, consumer product preference
was becoming increasingly focused onsustainability. As soon as the virus hit,
consumers were quick to align theirspending with products and services aimed
at effective health protection. Staying
safe and hygienic amplified the relevanceof certain product claims. Consumers
prioritized products that focused on killing
germs, providing immunity, and overall
health promotion above those with claims
around naturalness, sustainability, andbrand. COVID may not have made society
happier but it has certainly made it cleaner.
Furthermore, during the pandemic people
had to stay home for long periods andtherefore home care products became,and still are, a core element of people’s
daily lives.
That has had a significant impact on thehome care industry – particularly thecleaning and hygiene sub-categories.
Sales have increased dramatically as
consumer spending on these products
has rocketed. But since the pandemic
began to recede, that laser focus on
product performance has been rebalanced
somewhat with sustainability concerns.
Lingering concerns about the virus mean
product efficacy in health and hygiene
remains a key purchase driver across
many home care product categories. Yet
sustainability concerns over ingredientsare rising once again, especially now thatthe overall volume of home care products
people use is so high. As confirmed
by Euromonitor, a global research firm

focusing on consumer insights, ‘Consumerawareness [in 2022] of the importance ofbeneficial natural bacteria to their personal
health is growing, and potential healthissues linked to the use of chemical-based
antibacterial cleaners in a domestic setting
will be scrutinised more closely.’This is one reason why home careproducts now contain more ingredients
based on biological raw materials thanever before. Current estimates suggestthat bio-based surfactants in home
detergents now represent more than
40% of all surfactants in these products.
And whilst it is challenging to replacepetrochemical-derived ingredients entirely,a range of alternatives are gaining ground.
However, using biological raw materials
to create bio-based alternatives topetrochemicals is not the only way to find
new ingredients. Many could potentiallybe derived from novel biotechnology
processes such as fermentation, which
requires fewer trade-offs than using more
traditional methods of extraction. This isimportant for an industry where consumers’
demand for a better balance between
performance and sustainability could be
addressed by taking an innovative routerather than relying on convention. That is
why home care companies are starting toseek out new suppliers with biotechnology
capabilities or thinking about investing intheir own. The growing trend of formulatingwith biosurfactants produced throughfermentation, such as glycolipids, is an
excellent example in practice.
Either way, whilst the shift frompetrochemical-derived ingredients tobio-based ingredients is recognised
and established, the scale at whichbiotechnology can play a role in thatchange remains uncertain. Answering thisquestion is fast becoming essential as thehome care industry seeks out new ways
to achieve the necessary but delicate
balance between product sustainability
and performance through innovation. This
report considers all three to be drivers forthe use of biotechnology as the main way
to produce bio-based ingredients for thesector.

Biotechnology drivers and opportunities in home care | 7

Innovation
Whilst biotechnology is not brand new,it remains one of the most innovative
ways in which to create novel home careingredients whilst addressing sustainability
concerns. Companies have been using
bio-based ingredients within their products
for decades, but they have been limitedby the boundaries of what traditional
chemistry can create. This matters
because, as the past few years havedemonstrated, the impact of volatility in oursociety and the increased focus on healthand hygiene, means that companies areforced to constantly innovate to meet the
new and often unpredictable challenges
they face. Simply accepting something
could not be achieved before isn’t an
option if they want to keep up with market
needs and retain market share. They haveto find a solution. Having a different toolkit
with which to search for answers opens up
new avenues to consider. Biotechnology
addresses this in two ways.
Firstly, it provides a completely different setof processes and approaches with which to
explore the molecules that can be obtained
from existing living organisms. We knowthat traditional chemistry already provides
a way to produce certain ingredients, but it
can require the use of catalysts, solvents,
and raw materials that are not sustainable.
The number of those ingredients thatcan be produced through biotechnology
processes instead, such as fermentation
and bioprocessing, is growing. There isconsiderable potential for more bio-basedalternatives to be produced than everbefore and biotechnology is the key tofinding them.
Secondly, it provides a way to discoverbio-based ingredients from new andexisting natural feedstocks. The useof biotechnology to replace existing
petrochemical-derived ingredients isonly half of the story. In an industry that
constantly needs to innovate and improve
product performance, the opportunity
biotechnology provides to answer
questions that the sector has never beenable to solve through chemistry alone ishuge.

This is largely because biotechnology
expands the number of organic raw
materials that could be the starting point
for brand new ingredients with newcapabilities. With so many species of floraon land and in the sea, and such a varietyof microorganisms available for use inbiotechnology processes, the potential forthis approach to uncover replacements forfossil-fuel based ingredients, or develop
novel molecules that enable entirely
new product properties, is significant.
For example, using biotechnologyderived ingredients such as CroBioticTM
100, based on microbiology instead of
traditional chemistry, has transformed thedomestic cleaning market. Not only canthey outperform petrochemical-based
ingredients but they also offer significant
sustainability gains. A win-win forcustomers and consumers alike. So whilst
they can be more expensive, cleaningproduct manufacturers are developing
ways to get novel probiotics into theirformulations with strong efficacy and at a
cost effective level so they can maintainconsumer loyalty to their brands.
Biotechnology also has the potential tochange the entire manufacturing process– making it faster, more powerful, andconsiderably more sustainable. Somecompanies are already powering someof their own manufacturing sites using
the gas created by enzymes used in theirbiotechnology processes.
Another advantage of biotechnologyderived bio-based molecules is that they
can be adapted to be more potent andtherefore more effective. Probiotic cleaners
use beneficial bacteria to colonise surfaces
and break down soils and odours thatare present. They offer a deeper longerlasting clean, as engineered beneficial
bacteria can get into the tiny imperfections
and pores on a surface where dirt hides,
degrading the dirt and preventing resoiling. They also continue to work theirmagic for weeks, long after chemicalcleaners have stopped being effective. For
this reason, they are promoted as a way
to reduce the level of traditional chemicalcleaners in products by offering longer
term cleaning.

8 | Biotechnology drivers and opportunities in home care

Sustainability

Deriving ingredients from biologicalfeedstocks rather than petrochemicals is
often a more sustainable option. But thesource of those biological raw materials
and the way in which they are processed
into useful ingredients still has a significant
bearing on how they affect people,
society, and the environment. That is
why biotechnology’s ability to create biobased ingredients without endangering
biodiversity is attractive. For example,
fermentation can be used to produce
large amounts of a specific ingredientfrom a single microorganism, rather thanpotentially having to harvest huge amountsof crops to achieve the same outcome.
Sustainability does not start and end
with environmental impact though. The
concept of a green home care productrefers to those that have a lower andless harmful environmental impact thanthat of traditional ones. Although this is
noble and desirable, the concept for an
eco-responsible cleaning product uses
a much broader concept that integrates
environmental, societal and economic
parameters. Consumer attitudes andconcerns around sustainability are similarly
evolving and now span a much wider
definition, encompassing ethical supply
chains; diversity and inclusion; genderequality; and the equitable sharing of
benefits.
Today’s consumers are far moreinterested in learning about what goes
into making their products than previous
generations, leading to a growing demandfor better transparency and much closer
interrogation of upstream raw materials.
Where once the question was “Is thisingredient safe for the environment?”
it is now frequently “Where do its coreingredients come from? Which country?
How is it sourced? What impact does it
have on biodiversity?”
Biotechnology can help maintain andeven enhance home care companies’

capabilities here. The use of controlled
processes limits the complexity of the
supply chain and the number of points
where threats to sustainability andequality could materialise. So, as thedemand for greater transparency grows,
greater control over the source of raw
materials and the processes by which
they become bio-based ingredients will
be vital as companies fight for market
share. Biotechnology is a way in which that
control can be increased.
Biotechnology can also enhance
ingredients, reducing the amount of actives
required to achieve the same outcome. In
2000 the first biotechnological neutral pH
degreaser for kitchen floors was patented
and then marketed. This contained
less than 0.05% active ingredient anddegreased a kitchen floor more efficiently
than a traditional alkaline degreaser
containing 25 times the amount of active
ingredients. Using less is the mosteffective eco-friendly approach to homecare because it has a knock-on effect inother parts of the supply chain. A highconcentration of active ingredient makes
it possible to reduce the transport costs
associated with moving that ingredientfrom manufacturer to buyer and its highefficiency allows for very high dilution
rates and therefore lower amounts of all
the other ingredients used to make up the
product. This simultaneously helps homecare companies reduce packaging – animportant part of helping customers cut
down waste and their consumption ofmaterials – something that has becomea key demand since the drive to reduce
the use of plastics has accelerated in thelast five years. This translates to morerefill bottles and concentrated versionsof products on supermarket shelves –all driven by the ability to enhance thepotency of ingredients through innovative
new approaches, of which biotechnology isa major participant.

10 | Biotechnology drivers and opportunities in home carePerformance

The natural world is not a controlledenvironment geared towards supporting
the production of precise molecules
performing predetermined functions.
The sterile labs and facilities in whichbiotechnology processes take place are,so the ingredients they produce havethe advantage of not being subject touncontrollable variables. As a result,they can both guarantee and enhance
the performance of the ingredients they
produce.

considering their residual and prolonged
cleansing action, biotechnologicalcleaning products can be diluted at very
high rates while providing outstanding
cleaning performance. These high dilution
rates lead to high-performance cleaning
solutions that have a very low cost per
litre.

This means biotechnology can produce
a more consistent product, and theresulting ingredients can deliver morestable potency, which is why they areusually stronger than those obtained
through classical methods. The example of
CroBiotic™ 100 shows that biotechnology
is not a threat to performance; it can be an
innovative way to enhance it.
Furthermore, since bacterial cultures andenzymatic extracts are highly effective
even at very low concentrations andAnd home care companies no longer needto settle for natural performance alone.
Biotechnology’s ability to tailor inputs
and outputs means that the molecules
produced can be fine-tuned for efficacy
improvements. For example, tailoredmicrobes can synthesise active ingredientswith higher reliability and better-quality
control. Because they are grown in acontrolled and sterile environment, R&D
teams can engineer their growth anddevelopment to prevent the likelihood of
impurities and irregularities - a common
challenge among naturally sourced
ingredients, which can compromise
performance.

Biotechnology drivers and opportunities in home care | 11

Barriers
Whilst the benefits of biotechnology
are being more widely recognised,
incorporating it into the home careindustry is not without its hurdles. There
are some specific issues preventing
companies from fully exploiting
biotechnology’s potential to improve
innovation in this market.

12 | BarriersThis report highlights five that represent
the most significant challenges hindering
biotechnology’s shift from a niche toolset
to a fundamental component of progressin the move to bio-based ingredients. They
are: the cost/performance relationship;industrialisation; specialised skilledworkforce; and home care customer
understanding.

Cost vs performance
The home care market is far more pricecompetitive than other markets where
biotechnology is showing potential, suchas personal care. There will always
be speciality home care products for asmall percentage of the most dedicatedenvironmentalists but to be adopted
on a wide scale, the cost of integrating
biotechnology-derived ingredientsneeds to come down. At the sametime, performance must be maintained.
Consumers are not going to want tobuy products that are more sustainable

but offer inferior results. If the cost/
performance ratio becomes balanced,
a rise in demand is predicted. The
increase in sales for biopolymers in fabricconditioners is an example in practice. 20
years ago when first released, they wererarely purchased. Now that consumers
demand more innovative and sustainableproducts, and manufacturers have foundformulations that allow them to use themcost effectively without compromising
performance, sales have increased.

Industrialisation
An inability to industrialise is holding
biotechnology back. Granting the homecare sector access to an entirely new setof innovative product capabilities requires
biotechnology processes to be deliveredon an industrial scale. Several approaches
are showing credible promise, but none
are available at the magnitude required
to compete with alternative petrochemicalroutes.
This is due to a combination of cost andcomplexity. The process of moving fromlab to production is extremely challenging
and as volume increases it becomes
harder to manufacture products this way.
Even for the largest businesses, whichhave significant manufacturing experience,
it can be very difficult to go past certain
volume thresholds when it comes to somebiotechnology-derived ingredients.
In addition, to support product scaleup and technology development, pilot/

demonstration plant operation is often themost reliable way to generate the dataneeded to design equipment and scale it
up. Once successfully trialled/modelled
in laboratory conditions, the finances andexpertise required to grow to industrial
production are significant, limiting accessto only the few larger companies with theresources to commit. This is particularly
significant in highly price-sensitive markets
such as home care. The margins are tightso any investment in novel processes or
ingredients must be price neutral. Anythingthat requires a jump in cost for the
consumer is unacceptable.
Without sufficient support, particularly fromgovernments, the challenges associatedwith moving biotechnology to an industrial
scale will become significant barriers.
They will limit the variety of innovative newingredients for home care companies, andthe amounts of each that can be created.

Barriers | 13

Specialised skilled workforce
Biotechnology is a niche field where theskills required to succeed are a complex
blend of technical and non-technicalexpertise. That makes it a difficult
environment in which to hire the rightpeople and build the right teams. Whilebiotechnology has always been highly
specialised, more recent innovationsin technology, methodologies, as wellas in related disciplines such as gene
editing, pharmacogenetics or immunebiotechnology, have made the industry
even more complex, with not enough talent
in these nascent areas to go around.
This is being exacerbated by the growthof the sector itself. In 2018, biotech startups raised just shy of $29 billion globallyaccording to Crunchbase data, up from$19 billion in 2017. This cash infusion
is fuelling biotech expansion across theworld and emboldening start-ups to scale
much more aggressively than ever. Hiring
has therefore expanded and accelerated
making it a more competitive market for
those trying to find the right talent.
And it isn’t only a tug-of-war within thecore biotechnology industry. Successful

14 | Barriers

biotechnology programmes clearly require
some specific technical skills – such as
tissue culture; gel electrophoresis; andmass spectrometry, as well as knowledgeof a raft of different organisms.
Some of the skills needed go beyond
science, especially when it comes to the
manufacturing expertise which is highly
specialised when taking concepts fromlab to production; and upper management
positions, which require that candidates
know how to work with partners aroundthe world, manage and mentor people
and please investors as well as corporateboards.
Biotechnology companies also needtechnology skills, commercial skills,
and marketing skills to fully capitaliseon the growth of the sector. They are
now competing with more than justbiotechnology businesses for talent. In
the technology space for example, theadoption of artificial intelligence andbig data analytics means biotechnology
employers are now in direct competition
with companies like Apple and Google fortalent, which is a battle that can be difficult
to win.

Consumer understanding
The manner in which the public perceive
any new technology will have important
influence on the timing and direction of
innovation, and the rate of uptake.
We have already highlighted how
consumer demand for more innovative
yet sustainable products is a driver forbiotechnology use in home care. Yet
whilst conscious consumerism is on therise, the understanding of biotechnology
may not be keeping pace. One of the big
hurdles today is the erroneous perceptionthat biotechnology is bad, largely driven
by poor communication around genetic
modification in agriculture many years ago.

The very term ‘Biotechnology’ elicits arange of emotions, from wonder andawe to fear and hostility. These emotions
indicate just how poorly understood thefield is and the need for more accurate,
dispassionate information in the publicsphere to allow a rational public debate on
the actual, as opposed to the perceived,
risks and benefits. Put simply, mostconsumers do not understand whatbiotechnology is and what it is not. Thatneeds to change if companies want to use
more biotechnology-derived ingredientsin their cleaning, fabric care, and hygiene
products moving forward.

Regulations
Another barrier for the fast acceptanceof biotechnology in these products is thatexisting guidelines for industrial cleaning
are not up to speed when it comes tobiotechnology. Organisations have tofollow the regulations in place today.

So unless these are adjusted toaccommodate the progress of newtechnologies for home care products, they
may end up restricting the adoption of
biotechnology rather than advance it.

Barriers | 15

16 | Recommendations
Recomendations

Recommendations
In any innovation-driven environment there will be barriers. Many of them can be overcome.
In this section we propose a series of recommendations for changes that could release thefull potential of biotechnology to drive greater innovation in the home care industry.

Scale through partnerships
Reducing cost not only comes frommaking processes quicker and easier, it isalso a product of scaling up. Ramping up
the scale of production will deliver larger
volumes of active ingredients from raw
materials at lower cost. Large chemicalcompanies are already working on muchbigger batch sizes of biotechnologyderived ingredients. That makes partneringwith them sensible for the array of smaller
biotechnology businesses seeking to gain
access to the home care market.
This has the potential to offer a win-win forboth parties. Large chemical companies
get exclusive or early access to new
ingredients they can offer to customers,
and specialist biotechnology firms get toovercome the barrier of scaled production
at a fraction of the cost of building theirown infrastructure. Done correctly,
businesses at both ends of the chain could
build ‘scaling up’ into the design process
and eradicate the cost-barrier together.
The cost benefit of partnership is notcontained in the supply side. The growthof biotechnology-derived ingredients
must also be underpinned by a tighter
partnership between those developing
them and those buying them. Creatingtighter partnerships with home carecompanies ensures a better link between
the requirements for bio-based ingredientsand the process of developing new ones.

All whilst ensuring a greater mutual
understanding of the benefits and greater
opportunity to share the challenges ofscale and cost.
This report recommends that an
independent biotechnology and homecare working group be established,designed to bring together home carecompanies and their ingredient suppliers to
exchange information in a more structured
way. Businesses with biotechnology
capabilities can share their latest scienceand technology innovations in the field,
whilst home care companies can share thelatest consumer trends. Whilst this could
become a forum for catalysing commercial
relationships it would actually be designed
to be something very different – a safe
space where competitors and partners
alike can share information and ideas
collegiately without the threat of losing
competitive advantage. Government
representation in this working group would
help make sure any public investment in,or strategy for, biotechnology is directedprimarily by industry growth and economic
return. Regulator representation would
increase the chances of updates thatfacilitate and indeed encourage theadoption of biotechnology-based products
in industrial and commercial settings.

Recommendations
Recomendations | 17

Simplification of process
For biotechnology to really achieve its
potential in this market it needs to becheaper without being less effective.
Taking cost out of the process means
simplifying it wherever that is possible.
Today – making a sophorolipid (a surfaceactive glycolipid seeing growing applicationin consumer care markets) requires a nine-stage process – that is time consuming
and expensive. And that does not takeaccount of the downstream work to get
it to market in an effective formulation.
There needs to be further research into
simplifying the biotechnology process to
reduce both the cost of that process, andthe amount of downstream work required.

Increase the formulation skills pool
Having the ability to produce ingredientsat scale is only one end of the challenge.
The other is how they are used once
produced. That requires an immense
amount of manufacturing skills in the homecare industry. A greater understandingof how to formulate with these products
and the sustainable surfactants andother ingredients with which they can be

combined to deliver viable performance,
will help develop new formulations that are
efficacious using higher levels of these
biotechnology-derived products at lower
cost. Finding that talent is hard and witheveryone looking for the same skills, across-sector collaborative intervention
might be more effective than a ‘land grab’
for talent.

A national strategy backed with
sufficient public investment
The current reliance on larger companies
to fund the development of biotechnology
infrastructure suggests that public sector
support could play a part in the coming
5-10 years. There is no doubt that thechallenges associated with scaling thesector are holding biotechnology back.
This is why public investment is needed
at a national level. This is not just about
funding sustainability gains. Biotechnology
processes were in use long before theadvent of conscious consumerism and thedrive for a more sustainable way of life. It
is about funding a huge source of future
innovation. More than any other outcome
from the rapid growth of this industry, it

18 | Recommendations
Recomendations

is biotechnology’s ability to offer a newtoolset with which to design, create, andproduce new products and services thatmake it so important.
The argument for central funding,therefore, is that biotechnology representshuge potential for any economy and as
an underpin for industry innovation. That
will require a coordinated strategy thatall parties can get behind and participate
in. It would bring greater coherence andfocus to a fragmented industry, and greater
clarity about the outcomes of a matureworld-leading biotechnology sector for any
world economy.

Recomendations | 19

Biotechnology::h o me c a r e ma r k e t r e p o r t

Smart science to improve lives™