WELLESLEY, Mass, July 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Continuing advances in enabling technologies, such as DNA reading, writing, and editing, specialty media and bioinformatics, as well as a need for more efficient microbial production processes, are contributing to rapid growth of the synthetic biology market. According to the report Synthetic Biology: Global Markets, this market was valued at $4.4 billion in 2017 and is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.0% to nearly $13.9 billion by 2022.
The synthetic-biology industry consists of three main sets of technologies and products: enabling, core and enabled. Enabling technologies and products drive the development of the synthetic-biology industry. Core products and technologies—standardized DNA parts, synthetic genes and chassis organisms—are the key tools by which cellular factories and systems produce enabled products.
Because of its wide scope, synthetic biology plays an important role in the world’s future industrial economy. Growth in the industry is driven by a trend toward higher-value specialty products, such as performance chemicals, flavorings and additives, drug/therapies and novel crop traits. In addition, novel applications such as data storage, genetic vaccines and meat substitutes will enhance future growth of the industry.
Research Highlights
- Enabled products, the largest market segment, accounted for a value of more than $2.9 billion in 2017 and is forecast to increase at a CAGR of 25.1%, to reach a value of nearly $9.0 billion in 2022.
- The core products market segment is growing at a high rate—28.3% CAGR—due to increased demand for synthetic genes and oligos, the rise of synthetic biology foundries and efforts by organizations including the BioBricks Foundation, DIYbio and SynBERC to develop and apply DNA constructs.
- Innovations in CRISPR gene editing tools promise to transform this field, including nano-particle delivery of CRISPR systems (MIT) and non-Cas9 gene editing.
“Synthetic biology represents a major change in the scope of biotechnology,” said BCC Research analyst John Bergin. “The existing paradigm of genetic engineering is to modify existing genetic material, cells or organisms, usually one gene or modification at a time. The paradigm change of synthetic biology involves applying engineering principles to biology to design new biologic systems for a particular purpose, often making multiple changes in parallel. Synthetic biology operates on a much more complex scale than genetic engineering.”
Market Growth Aided by Government Support
Government support for renewables, particularly in the U.S. and U.K., is driving synthetic biology growth in several ways. First, biomedical grants from large government funding agencies provide resources for basic synthetic biology research, resulting in scientific innovation. Second, government incentives (e.g., mandates, subsidies, tax credits and rebates) and initiatives in climate change and renewable fuels are creating a positive risk-taking environment for synthetic-biology companies to develop and implement biofuel strategies.
About BCC Research
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