OECD defines biotechnology as “The application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents”. While industrial (white) biotechnology focuses on the “Application of biotechnology for the processing and production of bioenergy and biobased products (chemicals and materials)”. Industrial biotechnology competes with chemical processing, a multitrillion-dollar industry with strong patent protection, a well-trained workforce, economies of scale, and depreciated facilities. Industrial biotechnology can produce the same results as the petrochemical industry but using biological catalysts instead (figure 1). The sector embraces the application of the state of the art of a vast range of scientific disciplines,… Login to continue

Login or sign up