Introducing you to healthcare biotechnology

Healthcare biotechnology has a tremendous impact on meeting the needs of patients and their families. In fact, biotechnology in healthcare not only encompasses medicines and diagnostics which are manufactured using a biotechnological process, but also cell and tissue engineered products, and includes the use and the application of key biotechnology tools in the research and development of all innovative medicines.
The truth is that the majority of innovative medicines, whether manufactured using biotechnology or through a traditional process for small molecules, are made available by applying healthcare biotechnology.

From diagnosis to treatment and in terms of medicines manufactured, healthcare biotechnology is already delivering on its promises:

• More than 325 million patients have benefited from approved medicines manufactured through biotechnology and gene technology to treat or prevent heart attacks, stroke, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, leukaemia, hepatitis, diabetes and other diseases.
  
  

• Today, 418 new biotech medicines and vaccines are being tested for more than 100 diseases, among which 210 to treat cancer, 50 to treat infectious diseases and 44 to treat autoimmune disorders. Biotech medicines are estimated to account for approximately 20% of all marketed medicines and represent 50% of all medicines in the pipeline.
  
  

• The industry in Europe comprises some 1,600 companies and represented revenues of approximately € 7.8 billion in 2005.
  
  

• Increasingly, diagnostic test kits and diagnostic services are using biotech methods and reagents.
  
  

• For the first time in the history of human healthcare, biotechnology is enabling the development and/or manufacturing of therapies for a number of rare diseases with a genetic origin. Although individually rare, collectively these diseases affect some 20 to 30 million Europeans and their families, with 70-80% having a genetic component requiring biotechnology as part of the solution.
  
  

• Biotechnology is also increasingly used in healthcare research, in combination with medical devices and surgical methods.
  
  

• Biotechnology has a major impact on the provision of safe and effective vaccines against infectious diseases.
  
  

• Biotechnology also provides safe recombinant alternatives to proteins derived from human blood or tissue.