Biotech

Biotechnology is a relatively new industry, and is an attractive niche in which to develop a successful professional career. Biotech stands out from other industries because it is not defined by its products, but rather by the technology it relies upon in order to produce them. In other words, biotech can be considered to include any technology based upon biology.

There are four main fields in which you can pursue a successful career in biotech. These are: environmental uses, crops and agricultural production, healthcare, and bio-fuels. Biotech gained prominence in the 1970s when Stanley Cohen of Stanford University and Herbert Boyer of UCSF created a new recombinant DNA technique.

This inspired them to establish Genentech in the mid 1970s, which is widely accepted as the first biotech company in the world, and one of the most important in the field as it currently stands. The biotech industry market is fairly diverse. It generally comprises a large number of small companies, mostly oriented towards research and development, and is devoted to finding a cure to varied genetic diseases.

A small number of large biotech organizations stand out from the rest because of their size and resources. These are termed “fully-integrated”, as they produce and distribute their own products.

Many of the smaller biotech firms have been acquired or incorporated into the research and development areas of larger pharmaceutical organizations in an attempt to prevent them from enlarging and becoming a threat to a highly competitive market. Biotech companies produce treatment drugs that aim at curing diseases, as well as diagnosis drugs to help doctors diagnose complex diseases and conditions.