Ripe for picking
New Straits Times (Columns)
10 Sep 2006

BIOTECHNOLOGY is the next green revolution, and not just in agriculture. Though still some distance from a licence to print money, the life sciences are gene-splicing their way into a gold mine of new products and processes, whose global revenues have risen from US$23 billion (RM84 billion) in 2000 to US$50 billion last year.

For developing countries wearying of the rat race of old-world industrialisation, with its pollution, social dislocations and diminishing economic returns, biotech is also greener by being kinder on the environment.

That is why fast-movers like China, the only country in the developing world to participate in the Human Genome Project, are rushing with pioneering fervour into the new field. Malaysia cannot afford to be left behind.

It’s not just a question of keeping up with the regional Joneses. Biotechnology is intertwined with the knowledge economy and holds one of the keys to future post-industrial growth. Malaysia should have got a head start, with its renowned research establishments in tropical farming, rubber and palm oil.

But the economy’s rapid accession to the global manufacturing supply chain cost the country dearly in terms of scientific talent. The Ninth Malaysia Plan’s identification of biotechnology as a high priority aims to make up for the rather shabby treatment meted to the men and women in lab coats. They are now to be regarded as the new entrepreneurs, as privileged as any in a business suit.

Perhaps even more so. Biotech firms have been given "Bionexus" status, with freedom of ownership, income tax exemption for 10 years and access to a range of funds and grants.

The 2007 Budget has allocated RM210 million, including RM60 million for technology acquisition, RM30 million for commercialisation and RM59 million in R&D.

Seed money is to be sown by the Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, which is poised to be a front-runner in Asia.

Business-wise, the country appears to be hitting its stride at the right moment, a few years after the bursting of the biotech bubble in the American stock exchanges.

Investors have regained their yen for the scientists’ long-gestating projects, particularly now that the big pharmaceutical companies are looking to buy up new discoveries.

Malaysia can profit from the offshoring of research, just as it did with the production of microprocessors and disk drives. But it will gain more if it pushes scientific research to the forefront of its schools and universities.