BIOTECH SOLUTIONS: WHY SO EXPENSIVE?

    Government interest is one of the key factors in the development of biotechnology and in determining its value. Today, over 40 countries have national strategies to advance the bioeconomy.

    Since 2012, “The Comprehensive Program for the Development of Biotechnologies in the Russian Federation Bio2020” has been operating in our country but in 2018 the Ministry of Economic Development reported that it needed to be revised, since the program did not provide for research funding. What strategy will replace this document, which ceased to operate in 2021, is unknown. But in addition to financing, there is a great lack of an institution for the development of projects in the field of biotechnology in Russia, which would purposefully invest in this sector, as well as comprehensive regulatory support - this is what the market players drew attention to in the framework of the IV Annual Agrarian Forum of Russia in 2019.

    In addition, private sector investment and diversification of capital sources play an important role. In a pandemic, the venture capital market rushed to BioTech - only in the United States in the first half of 2020 there were as many funds aimed at biotechnology as in the whole of 2019 (with capital of more than $ 10 billion), according to Silicon Valley Bank. At the same time, more and more often, capital for biotechnological research is not limited to government sources and financing from the private sector: crowdfunding platforms (such as Indiegogo, Kickstarter) are connected: Internet portals that attract funds for a specific project from several investors. True, due to the pandemic, they suffered serious losses - on Kickstarter, according to Cnews, at the end of 2020 the number of projects decreased by more than 30%.

   Also, the cost of BioTech solutions is influenced by the availability of resources - technological (research centers, specific devices) and human (specialists). The more there are, the lower the cost of producing biotechnological products due to the ability to scale development. And at the same time, it is necessary to work on the transparency of operating activities and logistics, which create additional costs.

 

 

 

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