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This article is part of a five-part series focusing on the biotech industry, Genzyme and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Geeta Anand’s book The Cure. Please click here to learn more about this series.

The Biotech Industry: Definitions & A Brief History 

Ronald Rader, president of the Biotechnology Information Institute, is not a happy man. In an article he wrote last year for BioExecutive International, he argued that the press, pharmaceutical company executives and others are misusing the term biotechnology.  He contends:

“Articles in the major business/financial periodicals, newspapers, and other popular press often apply biopharmaceutical (and biotechnology) to products and companies without any real biotechnology involvement . . . Biopharmaceutical and biotechnology are buzzwords that attract audience attention and evoke warmer, more positive images than alternatives such as drugs . . . [In addition] [m]any executives and companies persist in misusing biopharmaceutical and biotechnology in presentations, publications and press releases.  Why? . . . [M]aybe they hope to avoid the image and other problems facing Big Pharma by redefining themselves as biopharmaceutical.” 

So, what’s in a name?  Quite a lot actually.  For some, the biotech industry has a well-deserved reputation for putting research first and developing life-saving medications for rare and deadly conditions.  Biotech means innovation, high science and, for pharmaceutical companies desperate for new drugs, promising pipelines.  Sometimes it seems that not a week goes by without an announcement that a major drug firm is buying a biotech for millions (or billions) of dollars.  Given this, Rader would prefer that we make clear distinctions between the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

What is Rader’s definition of biotech, or more specifically, a biopharmaceutical company?  It is:  “A company . . . involved in the research, development, manufacturing and/or marketing of biotechnology-based pharmaceutical products or surrogates.”  These usually “involve the use of organisms, cells [or] derived biological molecules . . .”

Whether one agrees with Rader’s classification of a medical biotech company, his definition is as good as any.  Let’s move on to the industry’s history.    

A Brief History Of The Biotech Industry

The Biodesign Institute has an excellent overview of the history of the biotech industry on its Website.  The following synopsis is based on its work.  

The Dawn of the Modern Biotech Era

The modern era of biotech, which I define as stretching from the late 1950s to the present day, began with the work of James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.  These pioneering researchers did the basic scientific work that identified DNA’s structure.

About 20 years later, Paul Berg, Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen conducted an experiment in which they successfully combined E. coli genes.  Excited about the potential of recombinant DNA technology, a young entrepreneur, Robert Swanson, contacted Boyer to pitch him on the idea of starting a company.  Boyer and Swanson went on to launch Genentech, which according to the company, “proved it was possible to make medicines by splicing genes into fast-growing bacteria that produced therapeutic proteins.”

The Biotechnology Gold Rush

In the 1980s, Genentech developed Humalin, the first FDA-approved genetically engineered medication.  In the following years, other biotech companies were launched, including Genzyme.  Founded in 1981, the company bet that it could earn significant profits developing medications for rare diseases.  Genzyme’s gamble paid off.  (To learn more about Genzyme, please click here to read a special e-book about the company.  A PDF version of the e-book is located here.)

Today, firms like Genzyme, Genentech and Biogen have become leaders in the biotech industry by developing hugely profitable medications for common and rare conditions.  In the next installment of this series, I will focus on the industry’s sterling reputation (as compared to the pharmaceutical industry). 

To learn more about the biotech industry, please visit these Websites:

-The Biotechnology Industry Organization
-The Biodesign Institute