Emerging Markets: A New Driver for Nanobiotechnology Innovation

According to Steve Walsh, founder and past president of the Micro and Nanotechnology Commercialization Education Foundation, a global nanotechnology group known as MANCEF, emerging markets are one of the new drivers for nanobiotechnology innovation. Even though residents in many developing countries do not have access to major testing labs, or the financial means for expensive care, they can still take advantage of some of the latest in testing technology, such as AIDS diagnostic tests that are accurate and cheap. Walsh says that nanotechnology innovation is now being driven by needs from all over the world, and biomedical innovations need to come from a new model that brings knowledge and expertise from outside the medical world. “Big pharma doesn’t have all of it,” he said. “They have to work with others.” Nanotechnology, Walsh says, will be part of the solutions to addressing what he calls the five major challenges of the 21st century: healthcare, food, the environment, energy and water. And while pharmaceutical companies will be part of these solutions too, it will not be in the same way they have been operating. Innovation will force them to look to other disciplines and to partner with other kinds of companies. And, in some cases, he says, the latest innovations may be commercialized in the developing world well before they are available in the West – a shift in thinking for biomedical innovation and commercialization. Big pharmaceutical firms have naturally pursued the U.S. market because it’s the largest in the world, but, now, with nanotechnology, they can take a different approach and deliver new products that help the largest number of people in the world, he said.

http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/09/emerging-markets-a-new-driver-for-nanobiotechnology-innovation/