A perspective on the economic valorization of gene manipulated biotechnology: Past and future

Three distinct fields of gene manipulated biotechnology have so far been economically exploited: medical biotechnology, plant biotechnology and industrial biotechnology. This article analyzes the economic evolution and its drivers in the three fields over the past decades, highlighting strong divergences. Product and market characteristics, affecting firms’ financing options, are shown to be important enablers or inhibitors. Subsequently, the lack of commercialization in a fourth type of gene manipulated biotechnology, namely environmental biotechnology, is explained by the existence of strong barriers. Given the latter’s great promises for environmental sustainability, we argue for a need to push the commercial valorization of environmental biotechnology. Our research has strong implications for (technology) management research in biotechnology, pointing to a need to control for and/or distinguish between different biotechnology fields.