Abstract

The scientific revolution in drug discovery and product development that occurred at the end of the 20th century, that is, the advent and full realization of the value of bio-technology, continues unabated into the 21st century. The growth has been remarkable in technologies, products, companies, and profits for biotechnology. From its early era of product approvals numbering 12 in the 1980s and 48 in 1990s, over an 18-year period, this discipline has doubled the discovery, development, production, and commercialization of innovative biological products with about 140 more products by 2010 (a 20-year period). Moreover, now over 180 human disease conditions are treated with biotechnology products, many of which are still major medical breakthroughs. The expansion of companies engaged in the development and marketing of biotech products also grew dramatically from 30 in 1999 to over 100 in 2010. Additionally in 2008, about 200 companies have about 600 biological products in clinical research in patients. Furthermore, over 4000 biotech companies worldwide employ over 180,000 staff. Revenues have risen to about $75 billion in 2009 from about $5 billion in 1990 in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The emerging countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and others will be adding substantially to the research and product development (1–15). The distribution of companies in the United States is observed in Fig. 1; California and Massachusetts continue to be the leading areas, aligned with the concentration of universities engaged in biotechnology research (13).