A new era of biotechnology
SPIEF-2018: a new era of biotechnology was discussed at the Skolkovo session
Dmitry Mungalov, sk.ru
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum hosted a business session "Life Science 2030: a New Era of biotechnology", dedicated to global trends in biotechnology and Life science, as well as the prospects for the development of the industry in Russia. The session was organized by the cluster of biological and medical technologies of the Skolkovo Foundation.
The Skolkovo Foundation supports innovative enterprises working in the field of IT, energy-efficient, industrial and space technologies, recalled Igor Drozdov, Chairman of the Board of the Skolkovo Foundation. According to him, predictive analytics can be considered the most promising direction in biomedicine. "Technologies at the intersection of medicine and IT seem very promising. We see a trend not to treat a specific disease, but to try to avoid it in various ways, whether it is genome editing or the selection of individual treatment." There is a strong mathematical school in Russia, and data analysis is an area where serious success can be achieved, the Chairman of the Foundation's Board believes.
Session "Life Science 2030: a new era of biotechnology". Photo: Sk.ru
At the same time, a large array of information is needed to build analytical models. "And data collection is a rather sensitive story. We are now talking about medicine and the digitization of such information. But we know that there is an ambiguous attitude to the topic of collecting biomaterial. To promote new technologies, we cannot do without digitizing data, but we must keep in mind that human security is on the other side of the scale," Igor Drozdov said.
"What they used to use in the world of the recent past no longer works,– I. Drozdov continued. – We need to form new rules of work for the next 10 years, because startups cannot be in conditions of uncertainty. This applies to both data and intellectual property. I am not sure that the regulation that exists now is sufficient and adequate for the newly emerging new technologies in the field of Life science."
Among the participants of the session was Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development, member of the Executive Committee of the Pharmaceuticals Division of Bayer AG, Joerg Moeller. He noted that the development of biotechnologies in recent decades has been rapid. Thus, from 1991 to 2011, cancer mortality was reduced by more than 20%. In terms of investment attractiveness, biotechnologies are catching up with the IT industry. The number of patents in this area is growing by 25-30% annually. The global biotechnology market is expected to grow by 160% by 2030. At the same time, scientific achievements cause controversy related to intellectual property protection, investment attraction, regulatory and ethical issues.
The session participants noted the importance of the strategic task of increasing the state budget for healthcare and agreed that technological breakthroughs in biotechnology are impossible without the joint efforts of business, the state and the scientific community.
For example, in Skolkovo, about 450 companies out of 1800 residents of the Foundation are engaged in innovative developments in the field of Life Science. Over the past year, the total amount of grants issued exceeded 500 million rubles, and the volume of extra-budgetary investments approached 2 billion rubles. 54 mentor-startup pairs were created in the Foundation. The number of patents obtained on the territory of foreign countries has grown and exceeded 70. Approximately 20% of all international patents obtained in the Russian Federation belong to residents of Skolkovo.
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