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Ask your constituents: Virtually every American has either benefited
from a biotech healthcare product or knows someone who has. Biotechnology has created more than
200 medicines and vaccines, along with hundreds of diagnostics that make it possible to detect
disease earlier, more easily and more precisely.
Now, biotechnology researchers are developing a new generation of medicines
that will revolutionize healthcare.
The Pipeline
Here is what’s coming:
Biotechnology companies are developing new drugs and vaccines for
literally hundreds of diseases and conditions. Some of these products
will treat diseases that afflict millions, while others target so-called
orphan diseases, conditions that in some cases afflict only a few
thousand Americans.
Also coming are new diagnostic tests that will help people detect
disease — and predisposition to disease — earlier and more
accurately than ever before. Other diagnostics will help patients
choose the medicines that are most likely to benefit them.
Alzheimer’s disease
At least 55 biotech companies are studying and developing products for this disease,
expected to afflict 13 million Americans by 2050.
Cancer
Biotech firms
are developing two-thirds of the 400 drugs now in clinical testing for
various cancers.
Biodefense
More than 100 biotech
companies are developing medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and sensors against
biological warfare agents.
Obesity
At least 52 biotech
companies are engaged in R&D on obesity, a condition linked to many health problems,
including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even cancer.
Transplants
Biotech firms are
exploring the use of stem cells and animal sources for transplantable
cells, tissues and organs to treat diseases that combined afflict more
than 100 million Americans.
Vaccines
Infectious diseases
remain one of the leading killers worldwide, accounting for about a
third of all deaths. Biotech companies are developing vaccines to
attack HIV, papillomavirus, herpes, cholera, yellow fever, dengue and
many other infections.
The list goes on and on. Biotechnology is developing products
for literally hundreds of conditions, including:
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