The U.S. bioeconomy can help us reach net zero and “capture the lion’s share of what is projected to be a $4 trillion global industry”—but we need to invest in it, says a new report from the Schmidt Futures Task Force on Synthetic Biology and the Bioeconomy.
The U.S. is “the world’s biotechnology powerhouse,” says the report, “generating nearly $960 billion in economic activity in 2016, about 5 percent of U.S. GDP, with more than half of the total generated outside the biomedical sector.”
“Over the next two decades or less,a well-developed bioeconomy has the potential to transform manufacturing processes to use renewable biomass rather than petroleum to make the products of modern society," the report continues, which would "reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, revitalize U.S. manufacturing and employment across the nation, create a more resilient supply chain, improve the nation’s health, and contribute significantly to the goal of creating a net zero greenhouse gas economy.”
However: “decentralized leadership, inadequate talent development, insufficient investment in both fundamental research and developing bioprocessing infrastructure, and international competition put the United States at risk of forfeiting that world-leading position and squandering the entrepreneurial drive and capital market interest that is trying to expand the bioeconomy.”
The task force recommends the U.S. government “commit to remaining the global leader in biobased science and scale up manufacturing” with investments including:
- “Establishing and funding a 5-year, $600 million Bioproduction Science Initiative (BSI) that expands budgets and remits of relevant science agencies.”
- “$1.2 billion in an extensive and flexible bioproduction infrastructure—one that can process multiple feedstocks using multiple organisms to produce multiple products at multiple scales—over two years to expand domestic bioproduction capacity in an equitable and strategic manner.”
- Establishing “creative public-private partnerships with the goal of reducing the time it takes to successfully scale new products from several years to months.”
Read the full report.
Closing thoughts: America's innovation ecosystem "has made the United States the global leader in biotechnology that quite frankly has changed the world—and with the right policies, we can continue to lead, benefitting both Americans and the wider global society," said BIO’s Dr. Michelle during a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology meeting last week.
