Biotechnology will be huge, speaker says

Biotechnology always seems to sound like cyborgs. You know, like the Terminator or Jean-Claude Van Damme. But, no, it's not that exciting. Regardless of the Hollywood excitement that the word biotechnology draws, it's still the future, according to the keynote speaker at the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium.

Alan Walton, co-founder of a TechTown tissue bank Asterand plc, said that this was going to be the "biotechnology century."

Excerpt:

The driving force for biotech development, he said, will be the recent successful sequencing of the human genome.

He said one reason for optimism was that while it takes 15-20 years for a new drug to go from concept to the marketplace, it has only been in the past six years that scientists have learned the molecular basis for most diseases.

Walton said that while the current funding climate for biotechs seems bleak — he said 80 percent of biotech companies have less than one year’s worth of operating capital — the market for initial public offerings of biotechs historically works on a four-year cycle.

“In 2009, the market for biotech IPOs will begin coming back,” he said.

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