Sectoral innovation foresight. Biotechnology sector. Final Reeport. Task 2

Biotechnology has evolved from a single set of technologies in the mid 1970s (e.g. recombinant DNA technology) into the full grown economic activity of today. The set of technologies that constitute the field of biotechnology thus find their applications in different sectors, most notably in agriculture and food (green biotechnology), pharmaceuticals (red biotechnology), chemicals (white biotechnology) and rather recently “blue biotechnology” that deals with marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology but still represents a comparatively small section. So far, firms active in medical biotechnology, and pharmaceutical firms in general have relied heavily on a limited number of products for profit generation: the so-called block busters. Rapid advances worldwide are seen in the adoption of agricultural biotechnology applications (genetically modified crops), especially in the Americas and Asia1, but almost absent in Europe. Innovations in industrial biotechnology focus on biofuels, the production of enzymes, et