Seattle, Washington, USA
August 15, 2011

Source: Rob Carlson's blog: www.synthesis.cc

Biodesic has released a short Technical Report on the size of U.S. Bioeconomy. The Biodesic 2011 Bioeconomy Update walks the reader through changes in revenues from GM crops, biologics, and industrial biotech. The Technical Report updates the figures and analysis published in, Biology is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life.

I continue to be surprised by the misreporting in major publications of revenues from GM crops.  Based on USDA statistics and average crop prices, the three main GM crops in the U.S. (corn, soy, and cotton) brought in farm scale revenues of $100 billion in 2010.  As I noted in 2009 in Nature Biotechnology, many news outlets continue to report the $5.5 billion in revenues from U.S. GM seed sales as total sector revenues.

With U.S. biologics revenues of $75 billion, and industrial biotech revenues of $115 billion, total U.S. 2010 revenues from genetically modified systems were $300 billion, or the equivalent of more than 2% of GDP. 

Globally, biotech investment continues to accelerate, as do revenues (see table below).  China and India have made domestic biotech a priority for producing jobs and economic growth and as an independent source of fuels, food, and materials.  Malaysia has recently reported biotech constituted 2.5% of its 2010 GDP, up from zero in 2005.  Pakistan's biotech economy presently consists entirely of GM cotton, which the USDA estimates to now be 100% of the annual drop, and which until 2010 was entirely illegal.

Read more in the Biodesic 2011 Bioeconomy Update.

Country	2010 Biotech Revenues	2010 Est. Growth	2020 Target  Biotech Revenues
Malaysia	2.5%	25%	10%
China	2.5%	20%	5-8%
United States	>2%	10-15%	NA
India	0.24-0.40%	20%	1.6% (2015)
Pakistan	1.6%	<5%	NA
Europe	<1.0%	5%	NA

Table 1. Biotech Revenues as Share of GDP. Source: Biodesic 2011 Bioeconomy Update.

Website: http://www.biodesic.com

Published: August 28, 2011