White House Inks Strategy To Grow Trillion Dollar US Bioeconomy

The US bioeconomy is booming. Valued at nearly one trillion dollars and predicted to grow globally to over $30 trillion over the next two decades, bioproducts now include everything from the food that we eat to the vaccines we put in our arms. Plant-based burgers, recyclable bioplastics, concrete, clothing, and microbes for mining minerals are just a few of the latest bio-based products coming to market.

To support this booming bioeconomy, the White House today announced that President Biden will sign an Executive Order creating a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative. I’ve previously written about the need for a Bio Belt to bring the innovations of biotechnology to rural America, creating a bioeconomy that works for all. With today’s announcement, that vision is a step closer to reality.

Through the Executive Order, the Biden Administration seeks to strengthen supply chains and address public health and climate challenges. It calls for strategic federal investments in biotechnology, enhanced domestic biomanufacturing, and the formation of a sustainable workforce that can generate safe and secure biotech innovations across the country.

As Americans begin to receive updated fall booster shots for COVID-19, the impact of biotechnology on the economy has never been more obvious. Vaccines for the coronavirus — provided to the public at no cost — may stave off another deadly winter and safeguard the entire global economy. But vaccines are far from the only product being built with biology. “Valued at over $950 billion, the U.S. bioeconomy accounts for more than five percent of the U.S. gross domestic product–more than the contribution from the construction industry, and on par with the contribution of the information sector,” writes Michael A. Fisher, Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit global policy think tank.

Without adequate Federal support, Fisher warned in August, the U.S. bioeconomy could lose ground to its competitors. “China aims to dominate the 21st-century bioeconomy and has prioritized growth of its bioeconomy in its five-year plans. From 2016 to July 2021, the market value of publicly listed biopharmaceutical innovators from China increased approximately 127-fold across several major stock exchanges, to more than $380 billion, with biotechnology companies accounting for more than 47 percent of that valuation,” writes Fisher.

Growing the bioeconomy is one of the few issues that it seems both parties in Congress can agree on – but progress has been in fits and starts. A decade ago, the Obama Administration published the National Bioeconomy Blueprint, a strategic plan for growing the US bioeconomy, and in 2019 the Trump administration hosted a White House Summit on America’s Bioeconomy. The big difference is that this time there’s an Act of Congress providing for a coordination function of all the separate parts of the US bioeconomy.

As part of the recently passed CHIPS and Science Act, Congress provided more than $52 billion for manufacturing, scientific research, and workforce development, with a focus on semiconductors. This bipartisan piece of industrial policy will also expand research into domestic biomanufacturing, speed up the commercialization of new biotechnology products, train a diversified workforce of life science professionals, and address head-on the ethical, legal, environmental, safety, security, and other appropriate concerns related to new biotechnologies. The bill creates a mechanism to coordinate federal resources and also develop an ongoing bioeconomy strategy.

“It feels like things are finally coming together in a coordinated fashion” says Mary Maxon who authored the 2012 National Bioeconomy Blueprint for the Obama Administration and is now the Executive Director of BioFutures at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic organization that funds science and technology research. “The US was near the head of the pack in developing a national bioeconomy strategy and now has a chance to catch up to the many countries that have since set their sites on circular bioeconomy strategies,” says Maxon.

Over the last decade, other countries including Germany and the United Kingdom were amongst the first nations in the world to develop national roadmaps for their bioeconomy and synthetic biology sectors. Shortly after, China began to direct huge sums into its burgeoning biotech sector. These countries and others have for years witnessed dramatic growth in their local bioeconomies. From innovative cell-based medicines to greener fertilizers, the global biotech sector has delivered products that improve lives.

“Products introduced in the last decade include blood tests to detect cancer at an early stage, antibody therapeutics to treat disease, meatless burgers, biodegradable plastics, bricks made out of mushrooms, face creams, and so much more. And it’s just the beginning of what’s possible,” said Emily Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, a San Francisco-based DNA manufacturing company. “Moving forward, the industry will accelerate product development across healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture, and even data storage, creating a huge number of meaningful jobs for this new type of work.”

“The foundries of the future will be biofoundries,” said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, a four-billion-dollar synthetic biology company located in Boston. “It’s great to see this commitment from the U.S. government to ensuring the nation leads in synthetic biology as the world enters the DNA Age.”

What will the U.S. plan for bioeconomy growth look like? That remains an open question. Experts have 180 days to develop and deliver a strategy that meets the nation’s many complex needs. “Now is a moment of significant opportunity to engage with federal officials implementing the new federal bioeconomy strategy,” writes Fisher.

One leader with a vision for how to make our bioeconomy more equitable is Representative Ro Khanna, whose district includes Silicon Valley in California. His flagship legislation, first introduced to the House in 2021 as the Endless Frontiers Act, calls for an emphasis on regional economic development that can spread innovation around the United States.

“If we want the whole country to thrive, we need to make sure our investments in science, technology, manufacturing, and infrastructure happen in the places where people already live, including Middle America. This Executive Order primes the bioeconomy to do just that,” said Khanna.

There appears to be a growing realization within the U.S. government that plants, microbes, and other living things can be used to produce products, and that this aligns with the nation’s dual needs to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing and cut carbon emissions. This bodes well for any industry that plans to build with biology. But it remains to be seen how the White House will prioritize the U.S. bioeconomy (~5% of GDP) relative to the much more talked about U.S. semiconductor industry (~1% of GDP).

As more and more biobased products become market ready, and the size of the global bioeconomy grows, so does international competition. As with other global industries, competition is fierce but with this new push for a coordinated strategy, the U.S. bioeconomy looks to maintain its competitiveness for some time to come. Today’s news is a welcome sign that Americans everywhere will soon enjoy the benefits of a more vibrant, equitable, and distributed bioeconomy.

Thanks to Ian Haydon, Mike Fisher, Mary Maxon and Sohum Phadke for additional research and comments on this article.