Bio-Revolution Ready To Scale

Breakthroughs in biomanufacturing could position the U.S. economy for new possibilities that reshape industries — and maintain our global competitiveness

Imagine grilling a lab-grown steak on your patio — but the bricks are made from bacteria . Guests at your cookout are wearing a mushroom belt, algal flip flops, or a protein coat. Meanwhile, someone rolls up in new dandelion tires for their car. All of this could be possible with the technology revolution that is quickly sprouting up.

The United States has led bioscience research for years, but it has recently hit an inflection point. Gene-sequencing can now be done cost efficiently, while advances in gene-editing, advanced computing, bioinformatics, automation, and artificial intelligence are converging to take what we can do with biology to a new, astounding level. Our ability to build molecules, materials, and structures biologically is set to unleash breakthrough innovations that will replace objects and products we use today. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that as much as 60% of the physical inputs to the global economy could theoretically be produced biologically.

R&D has brought forth this opportunity. Biomanufacturing is how we bring this revolution to scale across industrial, environmental, and societal domains. The benefits could be enormous:

· $4 trillion annually in global economic impact, according to the McKinsey analysis.

· More sustainable products, such as chemicals, cleaner fuels, and sustainably produced goods and food.

· Innovations for decarbonization and environmental remediation.

· Groundbreaking healthcare innovations, including tissue repair and on-demand medicine production.

· Economic opportunities for rural agricultural economies.

· New industries and new jobs.

Time to Scale. Recalling the early days of the digital revolution in the 1990s, digital technology was creeping into the economy, accounting for about $200 billion in U.S. value-added. The Clinton Administration put a policy framework in place to support the private sector’s development and deployment of digital technology and infrastructure. The digital revolution accelerated into a steep climb up the adoption curve, and the digital economy has grown tenfold in real valued added to more than $2.5 trillion in 2021. As the digital revolution scaled, it reshaped the human experience, the economy, national security, business, communications, whole industries, and society — and isn’t slowing down.

In 2017, the Council on Competitiveness partnered with four U.S. National Laboratories for a study called “Advancing U.S. Bioscience: Challenges and Opportunities in Sustainable Energy, Environmental Remediation, 21st Century Agriculture, Human Health, and Biomanufacturing.” The purpose of the partnership and study was to capitalize on our years of research and billions in R&D investment in order to move from labs and pilot manufacturing to large biomanufacturing platforms. We called for a strategic, aggressive, and coordinated U.S. effort to capture biomanufacturing’s great potential. These steps included:

· Pursuing the frontiers of bioscience and bioengineering, including R&D and strengthening our capabilities, such as the application of advanced computing and AI to fuel a rapidly changing sector.

· Bridging the innovation “valley of death” — the 10 years that the Department of Energy indicates, on average, that it takes to fully scale a bioprocess — and speeding up the innovation process. With the aim of cutting that time in half, we need testbeds and prototyping efforts to accelerate the translation of science to application to pilot manufacturing, and an industrial infrastructure and supply chains to bring biomanufacturing at scale.

· Developing a multidisciplinary workforce spanning life sciences and bioprocessing, chemicals, bioengineering, data and computational science, and biomanufacturing production.

· Creating clear, transparent regulatory pathways for firms to bring bio-based products to market. Because bio-applications will cut across a range of domains — from food and drugs to materials and chemicals to environmental remediation and consumer products — the regulatory landscape is complex, but the processes must be efficient, streamlined, and timely.

· Establishing standards for the biomanufacturing paradigm. Guardrails are needed to promote biosafety and biosecurity, and for environmental and occupational safety across the bio-based product life cycle. We also must have a serious conversation about ethical, legal, and social issues, including data privacy.

Framework to Scale. Last year, Congress and the Biden Administration set into motion many of these actions through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The legislation mandates that the President implement a National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative and directs the president to advance biomanufacturing research through interdisciplinary research centers, support education and training, and work towards a national network of testbeds and proof-of-concept activities to elevate laboratory research.

Additionally, in September, President Biden signed Executive Order 14081 on “advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation,” establishing a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing led by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The executive order calls for bolstering and coordinating federal investment in biomanufacturing R&D, fostering expansion of domestic biomanufacturing production, workforce training, and clarifying and streamlining regulations. It also directs federal agencies to do their part, ranging from R&D, standards or workforce development, or mitigating threats to national and economic security.

“As the bioeconomy expands from therapeutics to commodity products, it is critical that we significantly boost investment in R&D for platform technologies, such as synthetic biology and data-driven scale-up process development, to further shorten the lab-to-market time,” said Joe Elabd, the Vice Chancellor for Research at the Texas A&M University system. “A strong academy-industry-government alliance and a network of regional hubs will be a critical enabler to achieve this goal and bolster U.S. competitiveness.”

This national policy and program framework could turbocharge the private sector engine of innovation, shifting the bio-revolution into high gear and into the fast lane. Simultaneously, China aims to propel its bioeconomy to the forefront of the world by 2035. Its 14th Five-year Plan for Bioeconomy Development is an elaborate strategy for advancing China’s pillar industries in four fields — biomedicine, agriculture, biomanufacturing, and biosecurity — through innovation, industrialization, and government policy. The competitive race is already underway with our greatest economic counterpart — our efforts are steps in the right direction, and we must expand on them and not rest easy.

Because biomanufacturing cuts across numerous sectors and societal domains, new bio-capabilities will massively reshape the economy, from manufacturing to agriculture to supply chains for pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and consumer products. We’ve swiftly moving from the lab to being on the cusp of revolution, with real-life, everyday application like the aforementioned cookout. By creating pathways — and investment — for these technologies to take hold, we and future generations can benefit and continue to innovate.