Policymakers Take Notice of Bioeconomy's Potential

Abstract

Industrial BiotechnologyVol. 18, No. 5 EditorialFree AccessPolicymakers Take Notice of Bioeconomy's PotentialRebecca CoonsRebecca CoonsExecutive Editor, Industrial Biotechnology, New Rochelle, New York, USASearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:17 Oct 2022https://doi.org/10.1089/ind.2022.29290.editorialAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Biomanufacturing has long struggled to make meaningful inroads into supply chains and displace the refineries and crackers that have been providing fuels, chemicals, and materials from behomoth production complexes—many of which benefit from high levels of integration and decades of process optimization. However, trends such as climate change, ESG investors, consumer preference for natural solutions, and better strain optimization and process scale-up know-how have raised prospects for industrial biotechnology to revitalize and decarbonize economies and shore up supply chains—a convergence that policymakers are taking note of and taking steps to cultivate.President Biden in September launched the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative aimed at building, revitalizing, and securing national infrastructure for biomanufacturing across the US and strengthening the US supply chain for domestic fuels, chemicals, and materials. The executive order earmarks more than $2 billion from multiple agencies in support of biomanufacturing. The program aims to expand domestic biomanufacturing; foster innovation across the United States; bring bioproducts to market; train the next generation of biotechnologies; drive regulatory innovation to increase access to products of biotechnology; advance measurements and standards for the bioeconomy; reduce risk through investing in biosecurity innovations; and facilitate data sharing to advance the bioeconomy.“By responsibly harnessing the full potential of biotechnology and biomanufacturing, we will be able to realize the potential of biology that can make almost anything that we use in our day-to-day lives, from medicines to fuels to plastics, and continue to drive US innovation into economic and societal success,” the White House said in a press statement—adding that bioengineering could account for more than a third of global manufacturing output, or approximately $30 trillion in value, by the end of the decade.The executive order offered details on how the funds would be allocated. The Department of Defense (DoD) is launching the Tri-Service Biotechnology for a Resilient Supply Chain program with more than $270 million investment over five years to turn research into products more quickly and to support the advanced development of biobased materials for defense supply chains, such as fuels, fire-resistant composites, polymers and resins, and protective materials. Through the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge, the Department of Energy (DOE) will work with the Department of Transportation and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to leverage the estimated 1 billion tons of sustainable biomass and waste resources in the United States to provide domestic supply chains for fuels, chemicals, and materials. These efforts will collectively lower prices for American families, especially in times of global supply chain turbulence.The DoD will also invest $1 billion in bioindustrial domestic manufacturing infrastructure over 5 years to catalyze the establishment of a domestic bioindustrial manufacturing base that is accessible to U.S. innovators. This support will provide incentives for private- and public-sector partners to expand manufacturing capacity for products important to both commercial and defense supply chains, such as critical chemicals. DoD will invest an additional $200 million to support enhancements to biosecurity and cybersecurity posture for these facilities. The USDA will make $500 million available through a new grant program in the summer of 2022 to support independent, innovative, and sustainable American fertilizer production to supply American farmers, which can make use of advances in biotechnology and biomanufacturing.DOE will provide up to $100 million for research and development (R&D) for conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals, including R&D for improved production and recycling of biobased plastics. DOE will also provide an additional $60 million to de-risk the scale up of biotechnology and biomanufacturing that will lead to commercialization of biorefineries that produce renewable chemicals and fuels that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, industry, and agriculture.USDA's BioPreferred Program, which advances the development and expansion of markets for biobased products with a catalog of over 16,000 registered products, will launch a $10 million Bioproduct Pilot Program to support scale-up activities and studies on the benefits of biobased products.Manufacturing USA institutes BioFabUSA and BioMADE (launched by the DoD) and NIIMBL (launched by the Department of Commerce (DOC) will expand their industry partnerships to enable commercialization across regenerative medicine, industrial biomanufacturing, and biopharmaceuticals. For example, NIIMBL will launch a biomanufacturing initiative that will engage the institute's 200 partners across industry, academic, non-profit, and Federal agencies to mature biomanufacturing technology needed to improve patient access to gene therapies.BioMADE will launch hubs supporting equitable regional development, create jobs nationwide, and enhance American economic competitiveness. BioFabUSA is standing up the BioFab Foundries, a first-of-its-kind U.S. facility that integrates engineering, automation, and computation with biology. BioFab Foundries will be accessible to U.S. innovators to enable manufacturing of preclinical and early-stage clinical products.Some of the work was already underway by the time the executive order was announced. In May, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a competition to fund Regional Innovation Engines throughout the United States. These Engines will support key areas of national interest and economic promise, including biotechnology and biomanufacturing topics such as manufacturing life-saving medicines, reducing waste, and mitigating climate change. Also in May, USDA announced $32 million for wood innovation and community wood grants, leveraging an additional $93 million in partner funds to develop new wood products and enable effective use of U.S. forest resources.DOE also plans to announce new awards of approximately $178 million to advance innovative research efforts in biotechnology, bioproducts, and biomaterials. In addition, the U.S. Economic Development Administration's $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge will invest more than $200 million to strengthen America's bioeconomy. Investments in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, and Alaska will help expand the bioeconomy by advancing regional biotechnology and biomanufacturing programs. These regional investments will rebuild pharmaceutical supply chains to lower drug costs, catalyze a sustainable mariculture industry, better utilize mass timber to accelerate affordable housing production and restore forest health, enhance the production and distribution of regenerative tissues and organs, and develop a robust pipeline of biotech talent, expanding opportunities to underserved and historically excluded communities.“Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow the United States economy and workforce and improve the quality of our lives and the environment,” according to the executive order. “The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vital role of biotechnology and biomanufacturing in developing and producing life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines that protect Americans and the world. Although the power of these technologies is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health, biotechnology and biomanufacturing can also be used to achieve our climate and energy goals, improve food security and sustainability, secure our supply chains, and grow the economy across all of America.”For biotechnology and biomanufacturing to help us achieve our societal goals, the United States needs to invest in foundational scientific capabilities. “We need to develop genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers; unlock the power of biological data, including through computing tools and artificial intelligence; and advance the science of scale-up production while reducing the obstacles for commercialization so that innovative technologies and products can reach markets faster,” the White House says. Policymakers are also paying attention in Europe, a region where economic revialization and supply chain surety are particularly timely topics. In June, the European Commission released a report outlining the state of play of the European Bioeconomy and assessing the progress in the implementation of the 2018 EU Bioeconomy Strategy and its Action Plan. It also identifies the gaps and future opportunities of the bioeconomy policy, in light of recent policy developments under the European Green Deal.The report shows that the actions set out in the Bioeconomy Strategy of 2018 are on track in achieving the strategy's main objectives. It notes an increased number of national and regional bioeconomy strategies promoting cross-sectoral cooperation and sustainability principles and investing in bioeconomy innovation, and progress on bioeconomy deployment in Central and Eastern European countries, aided by significant EU funding contributions and the establishment of new fora and networks. It also noted mobilization of private investments, start-ups and research and innovation in food and other biobased industries is increasing and showing promising developments.But the report also identified gaps in the implementation of the action plan. It noted a need for increased focus on how to better manage land and biomass demands to meet environment and economic requirements in a climate neutral Europe. The report also said more work is needed on more sustainable consumption patterns to enhance environmental integrity.According to the progress report, bioeconomy is already an important sector for Europe's economy, representing about 9% of the EU's workforce and contributing 5% to GDP. For the chemical industry, the turnover of biobased products is about 7.5%. Despite the huge potential for the bioeconomy to accelerate the EU Green Deal, Bernard de Galembert, Sector Group Manager at Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council said more policy consistency is needed. “[W]e need to make sure that the initiatives in the field of carbon cycles, the Circular Economy Action Plan, climate policy, etcetera, are all somehow aligned and considering the bioeconomy as playing [a] critical or pivotal role. We should avoid that the regulations are either overlapping or sometimes even contradicting each other,” he says.At a Digital Dialogue organized by Cefic in July, Peter Wehrheim, Head of Unit of Bioeconomy and Food Systems at DG RTD, European Commission, agreed. “The bieconomy is seen as a natural enabler, but it can also be the result of the European transformation,” he said. Frederic van Gansberghe, CEO at Futerro, added that without mandatory applications via regulation or help for the industry to grow, it will be very difficult to create the markets in Europe: “Without markets, we have to be realistic, nobody will invest… People will go where there is cheap biomass, cheap energy, or favourable policy.” Gansberghe explained that in Europe there is a good biomass sources but additional support is needed from the European Commission to create this market. “Policy should be done in a way to encourage the market appetite.”Partnerships and funding for innovation are key to accelerate the “jump” in transition from basic research to commercialization, added Marco Rupp, Public Affairs and Sustainability at Bio-based Industries Consortium, who also drew attention to the bio-based funding available through the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking.Ramped up efforts to develop the bioeconomy in the US—and assess progress in Europe—closely follow China's release of a five-year bioeconomy plan in May. Focusing on preventing epidemics and growth via low-carbon bio technologies, the plan targets a 22-trillion-yuan ($3.28-trillion) bio economy by the end of 2025. “Under the plan, bioeconomy—a model focusing on protecting and using biological resources and deeply integrating medicine, healthcare, agriculture, forestry, energy, environmental protection, materials and other sectors—will become a key driving force to boost high-quality development by 2025,” the National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China said at the time. “By 2025, China's bioeconomy will witness increases in its total scale, enhanced comprehensive strength of science and technology, and development of industrial integration, as well as enhanced biosecurity. By 2035, China is set to be at the forefront in the world in terms of the comprehensive strength of its bioeconomy.”Policy has been a mixed bag for biobased development, with many grizzled industry veterans wary of building business plans on shifting political sands. But with the balance of stakeholders also on board with the bioeconomy—and a world united behind the need for a low-carbon future—funding commitments across a range of government agencies point to meaningful help to build a strong foundation.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 18Issue 5Oct 2022 InformationCopyright 2022, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:Rebecca Coons.Policymakers Take Notice of Bioeconomy's Potential.Industrial Biotechnology.Oct 2022.263-265.http://doi.org/10.1089/ind.2022.29290.editorialPublished in Volume: 18 Issue 5: October 17, 2022PDF download