Drivers and barriers for industrial biotechnology.

Industrial biotechnology is a key technology for future economic development. Governments recognise the importance of industrial biotechnology and many are increasing their support to take advantage of the potential and remove barriers to growth. On a sector level, the largest market potential lies in the production of fine chemicals for the pharmaceutical and agro industry, biopolymers and biofuels. In 2007, the sales of biotech products was around 48 billion Euro worldwide (3.5% of total chemical sales). The most important sub-segments were active pharmaceutical ingredients and cosmetics. Sales of biotech products are estimated to increase to around 135 billion Euro (7.7% of total chemical sales) in 2012 and to around 340 billion Euro (15.4% of total chemical sales) in 2017. The main drivers are the need for sustainable development, the ongoing globalisation, the fast technological development in this area, governmental programmes and the increasing importance of cleantech as investment category. Main barriers are high investment and production costs in most areas, cyclical raw material prices and limited availability, complex innovation processes, low social acceptance of genetically modified organisms and the correlated governmental regulations as well as low awareness and acceptance by investors and the impact of the financial crisis.