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The Bioeconomy to 2030 Designing a Policy Agenda Presentation: David Sawaya, Policy Analyst OECD International Futures Programme

Event Description:

Biotechnology has the power to improve lives, to address environmental challenges, and to change the way the world does business. A new OECD report, The Bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda, examines the role of biotechnology in the global economy over the next two decades and the types of policies that are needed to maximize its potential benefits.

While biotechnology is not a panacea, the intelligent use of a range of biotechnologies in health, industry, and agriculture could help meet global challenges from a growing population, changing demographics, and environmental stresses from climate change and water shortages. By 2015 virtually all new drugs, about half of global production of the world’s major crops and an increasing number of everyday products (e.g. food additives, plastics, fuels and detergents) will be produced using biotechnology.

From less than 1% today, biotechnology could contribute to up to 2.7% of the GDP in OECD countries by 2030, and considerably more in non-OECD countries. However many barriers stand in the way of the development and commercialization of biotechnologies. These include not only technological challenges, but also regulations, how intellectual property is used, human resources, social acceptance, market structures, and suitable business models. To boost innovation and competitiveness, policies for the bioeconomy need to align better private sector incentives with public goals, particularly in health, and reduce the cost of regulation, particularly for small market applications in agriculture and industry.

Some structural conditions may need to change. To ensure maximum benefits across the board, policy should ensure that the opportunities for R&D and investment match the economic, social, and environmental benefits of biotechnology. As an example of a current mismatch, only 6% of business expenditures in the OECD on biotechnology R&D go to applications in agriculture and industry, even though 75% of the potential economic contribution of biotechnology is in these two areas. In contrast, 25% of the potential contribution of biotechnology is in health, but this field receives over 85% of current business expenditures for biotechnology R&D. The solution is not to reduce business R&D expenditures in health, but to ensure that there are adequate incentives to encourage substantially greater business investment in other applications of biotechnology.
David Sawaya will discuss all of these issues, against the background of OECD’s recent report on The Bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda.

Biographies:

David Sawaya is a Policy Analyst in the OECD's International Futures Programme (IFP). He is responsible for strategic planning and research within the OECD’s projects on The Bioeconomy to 2030 and manages the IFP’s biosecurity website, www.biosecuritycodes.org. In these roles, he has undertaken original research to analyze the future global socioeconomic impacts of biotechnology and to identify key policy issues. He is the co-author of the OECD’s recent report on The Bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda. Prior to joining the OECD, Mr. Sawaya, who is an American national, worked as an engineering design consultant on government and private development projects in the United States. Mr. Sawaya studied civil engineering, with an emphasis on structural systems and a minor in environmental studies, at Santa Clara University (California, USA), space studies at the International Space University (Strasbourg, France), and economics at George Mason University (Virginia, USA).