Biotechnology in the United Kingdom is the British industry regarding organisms that manufacture commercial products, whether the

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

s of the organism have been naturally procured or not (

synthetic biology Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad ran ...

). The industry can be

controversial Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite ...

, and often overlaps with the

healthcare Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

and

pharmaceutical industry The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. ...

(

biopharmaceutical A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, t ...

s). Currently, most industrial biotechnology expenditure in the UK is in the field of healthcare, and consequently the UK is the leader in Europe in the development of biopharmaceuticals, by some distance.

History

Celtech, founded in 1980, was one of the earliest British biotechs. In 2015, the UK had around 225 main biotechnology companies, turning over around £2.9bn.BBSRC Report July 2015
/ref> Exports accounted for around £1.5bn of turnover. The UK has an estimated 5% share of the global market. In Europe, by patent applications submitted under the

Patent Cooperation Treaty The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed und ...

, the UK is third, second to Germany and France but seventh in the world.

Employment

Around 8,800 people in the UK are directly employed in biotechnology, so it is not a labour-intensive industry. Other spending by British biotechnology companies supports around 11,000 other workers indirectly. The average income for a worker in the British industry is around £48,000; in London, this is £70,000. Employment is most found in London,

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of england, ...

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

and Scotland.

Research

Around £920m is spent on biotechnology research in the UK, around 4.5% of all private sector research and development. According to an

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

study, the UK is fourth in the world for expenditure on biotechnology research, after the USA, France and Switzerland. France spends around twice that of the UK on biotechnology. The expenditure on biotechnology research in the USA is far larger than any other country. The UK biotechnology industry leads in biopharmaceuticals research in Europe, well ahead of Switzerland and Germany, in terms of numbers of products being developed.

Organisations

Organisations that represent the British biotechnology industry are

EuropaBio EuropaBio ("The European Association for Bioindustries") is Europe's largest and most influential biotech industry group, whose members include leading large-size healthcare and industrial biotechnology companies. EuropaBio is located in Brussels, ...

(Europe-wide in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

) and the

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific rese ...

(BBSRC) in

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

. The

National Centre for Biotechnology Education The National Centre for Biotechnology Education (NCBE) is a national resource centre at the University of Reading to teach pre-university biotechnology in schools in the UK. It was founded in 1990. History It began as the National Centre for Sch ...

supports secondary schools. The

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably ...

(MHRA) regulates biopharmaceuticals in the UK.

References

External links