U.S. Agriculture Biotechnology Markets

Abstract

A Booming Biopharmaceutical Industry Spurs Agriculture Biotechnology Industry

Agriculture biotechnology is gearing up to address the low biologics manufacturing capacity problem in the burgeoning bio-therapeutics industry. Biopharming or plant-based pharmaceutical production involves genetic re-engineering in plants using recombinant DNA techniques to produce pharmaceuticals that treat diseases. Setting up a traditional mammalian cell culture plant requires heavy investments in terms of time and money. Biopharming provides an alternate solution to address the imminent biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity crunch as the addition of transgenic plants alleviates the production shortage of biologics.

This Frost & Sullivan research service analyzes the U.S. Agriculture Biotechnology Markets. This service divides the market into two main segments: genetically modified crop traits and plant-based pharmaceutical production. It provides detailed insights into recent developments, trends, and emerging applications in both. This service also provides competitive and market opportunity analyses.

Exploding World Population and Economics of Weed/Pest Management Drive Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

A burgeoning global population and shrinking acreage of arable land is making food security a serious concern for developing countries. As huge amounts of crops are lost to pests and weeds, large agriculture research companies are already working on genetically modifying crops to multiply the produce from existing cultivable lands. "The GM crops marketed by agrochemical and biotech companies have stacked traits, which confer them with a built-in resistance to pests, tolerance to herbicides, and high nutritional value," says the analyst.

Biotechnology is fast overcoming opposition in many European and Asian countries and by 2006 these countries are likely to irrefutably adopt biotechnology, as necessity drives demand. The revolutionary technology has a huge bearing on agriculture in the United States where a majority of crops are being cultivated using biotechnology to increase yield by better pests and weeds management.

"Value-Added Agriculture" to Drive Future Growth

"Future development is directed by the introduction of new traits and 'value-added agriculture' where common crop plants such as corn and tobacco are genetically re-programmed to produce high value-add pharmaceuticals and industrial enzymes," says the analyst. Plant-based pharmaceutical technology is at an advanced trail stage and a number of drugs for various diseases - including cancer, fabry disease, and dental caries - are likely to be available for full-fledged production after 2005.

Since the energy for the biopharming manufacturing process comes free from natural sources, drugs from plants are potentially less expensive. Therefore, doubling the acreage of a crop requires far less capital than doubling the capacity for factory-made drugs. The cost effectiveness is further giving impetus to the development of plant-based pharmaceutical products that include monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and human enzymes.