Week 6 - The BioBusiness Revolution

This week, we looked closely at the BioBusiness Revolution; the past, present and future of Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences. BioBusiness, being the commerce of life science, is a colossal field that encompasses a great number of businesses; from agriculture to genetic engineering. I was astounded by the fact that BioBusiness already constitutes over a quarter of the global GDP and employs some forty per cent of the world’s labour force!

I just felt like appreciating the wondrous beauty of nature. All living organisms have been built from the same basic source code or blueprint – DNA; and from this basic template, they have evolved into immense diversity. This explosion of existence of what works and what is better (adaptations and mutations) has created the millions of species that exist today. Prof mentioned how humans have played the role of God to date in shaping how life forms have developed. For example, the crossbreeding of different wolf species to get the desired type of dogs that we have domesticated and utilized in society. Humans have destroyed huge habitats and eradicated species through our exploitation of Mother Earth.

It is also fascinating to see how humans, through advanced scientific research, have been able to artificially synthesize natural compounds, enzymes and substances. Several people who are close to me have had to take artificial insulin injections to counter diabetes. This disruptive biomedical innovation has left me grateful and appreciative of this field and the potential it has to change lives. Additionally, being a football fan, I have marvelled at Lionel Messi’s use of artificial growth hormones which has enabled him to reach where he is today. Another important thing to note is that the innovations in healthcare have also found tremendous potential in applications in other fields such as agriculture. An interesting range of products are being innovated in the field of Bioplastics. Their amazing uses and non-reliance on oil for plastics makes them highly favourable in today’s markets.    

We discussed the worrying fact that the US takes up half of the globe’s Healthcare market as it invests mostly on the older end of the healthcare spectrum i.e. on end-of-life spending. These are people who, as Prof says, ‘already have one foot in the grave’; and yet, the US spends such a vast amount of resources to cater to their needs instead of focusing on boosting the wellbeing of its youth.      

It is interesting to note the re-emergence, acceptance and commercialization of traditional medicine and healing such as Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Herbal Medicine, etc.  I feel that this is a more open-minded and holistic approach to treatment as opposed to merely relying on allopathic cures. I can relate this to the movement towards organic food; people are getting more educated about what is good for their health and producers have no choice but to research and develop products that fill this gap. The fact that the closer you go to nature, the lesser your side-effects become shows that this is the ideal direction for us to head in.  

I must say that I greatly enjoyed the presentations and discussions we had this week; I’d give this session a 10.