About the Biotech Industry Pharmaceutical biotechnology is a futuristic industry. Modern biotechnology in pharmaceuticals is definitely different from traditional biotechnology that focused on secondary metabolites, antibiotics, steroids, vitamins, etc. The modern pharmaceutical biotechnology industry gives importance to newer biotech concepts of recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies, gene therapy and transgenic organism among others.
An overview of the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry in 2009 shows many changes in sales, market, earnings and R&D. New trends and reshuffling of top biotech companies and changes in bestselling medicine brands were registered. Lipitor retained its position as the top selling medicinal brand with $13 billion in sales followed by Plavix and Advair. Many blockbuster drugs had been registered to be sold by top biotech companies. However, expenditure on R&D registered a decrease in 2009, but in spite of a fall in R&D budget allocations, the number of new drugs approved by the FDA in 2009 increased considerably. A greater number of companies were granted licenses as compared to the previous year. There was also an increase in mergers and acquisitions of pharmaceutical biotech companies. Roche has been recognized as the most efficient R&D company in 2009.
Many pharmaceutical biotechnology reports forecast a market growth, novel technologies and expansion into new therapeutic areas during the next decade. The global pharmaceutical biotech market is predicted to experience continued high growth throughout this time. Pharmaceutical biotechnology drugs will be manufactured by all kinds of drug manufacturers ranging from major pharmaceutical companies to pharmaceutical firms that specialize in a single area. R&D activities have been predicted to grow with some significant R&D efforts having major impact on the overall biotech market. The introduction of innovative new treatments will result in further expansion of the pharmaceutical biotech market.