Economics of Biotechnology Home Page
THE ECONOMICS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
0.0 INTRODUCTION
© Harry Hillman Chartrand
Compiler Press, 2007.
Index
0.0
Introduction
0.02 Definitions of Biotechnology
0.1 Knowledge & the
Knowledge-Based Economy
0.2 Biological Sciences:
Wetware vs. Dryware
0.3 Product vs. Process vs.
Enabling or Transformative Innovation
0.0 Introduction
In this course we will explore 'the economics' of 'biotechnology'. In this Introduction I first outline, in symbolic logic, the standard model of market economics and then survey alternative definitions of what constitutes 'biotechnology'. Second, I will define knowledge and the knowledge-based economy which provides the context for the biotechnology industry. Third, I will distinguish biology and biotechnology from the other natural & engineering sciences and technologies. Fourth, I will locate biotechnology within the economic theory of innovation. Fifth, I will survey the various sub-sectors that make up the over all biotechnology industry. Finally, I will outline the Industrial Organization model that will be used to explore the economics of biotechnology.
Please see: Three Page Symbolic Micro
0.02 Definitions of Biotechnology
What is biotechnology? There are many definitions and facets. Please see: Multilateral and Other Definitions & Use of Terms.
0.1
Knowledge & the Knowledge-Based Economy
Every organism
lives in an active environment consisting of: (i) invariants, e.g., the river, the ocean, the sky, the
mountains, the seasons, etc., and,
(ii) affordances presented by predator, prey, possible mates and/or symbionts
(Grene & Depew 2004). Environmental
invariants become subsidiary or ‘tacit’ to our focal awareness of
affordances. In this view, ‘knowledge’
is orientation in an active environment resulting from the tacit integration of
subsidiary and focal awareness into a gestalt whole (Polanyi Oct. 1962). This is called ‘knowing’.
Such knowledge
becomes stored or fixed as neuronal bundles of memories and the reflexes of
nerve and muscle. This constitutes personal knowledge. Some can be communicated to others; some,
such as trained reflexes, cannot. Thus a
brick layer or a brain surgeon has trained reflexes and this cannot be
communicated easily to another person.
It is ‘tacit’ and can be leaned only by practice, if at all. Such ‘tacit’ knowledge plays, as we will see,
a critical role in the knowledge-based economy (Cowan, David & Foray 2000).
Humanity,
however, lives, as pointed out by Walter Lippman (1922), in a pseudo-environment made out of the
complexity of its self-created world.
One’s immediate Space/Time presented by the five physical senses of
touch, taste, smell, sight and sound reflects but a small part of the active
environment in which one lives, loves and works. For the rest one relies on what Lippman calls
‘the pictures in our heads’ conveyed through codified knowledge, a.k.a.
'the media'.
Codified
knowledge is fixed in an extra-somatic
(Sagan 1977), i.e., out-of-body,
media that in Law is sometimes called a matrix.
This conveys knowledge from one human mind to another, usually distant
in Space/Time, assuming the Code is mutually understood by sender and receiver
(Chartrand July 2006). Today, codified knowledge takes the form of
the written and spoken word, mathematics, the still and moving image, recorded
sound & music and, experimentally at least, recorded odour and touch. In effect, codified knowledge fixes meaning into Matter/Energy. As noted by Husserl, about writing (but
arguably true of all forms of codified knowledge) “makes communications possible
without immediate or mediate personal address; it is, so to speak,
communication become virtual. Through
this, the communalization of man is lifted to a new level” (quoted in Idhe 1991, 46).
On the other
hand, tooled knowledge, a.k.a.,
physical technology, is knowledge fixed as function
in an extra-somatic matrix. It enframes
and enables Nature to serve human purpose (Heidegger 1955).
Most organisms do not just adapt to their environment they also adjust
the environment to serve their purpose, e.g.,
the ant hill, bird’s nest and beaver dam.
The proof that knowledge can be fixed as function is demonstrated by the
practice of ‘reverse engineering’ (Samuelson & Scotchmer 2002).
Tooled knowledge
takes three forms: sensors, tools and toys.
The purpose of sensors is measurement of Matter/Energy; the purpose of
tools is manipulation of Matter/Energy and, the purpose of toys is
pleasure. Sensors and tools are located
on the production-side of the economic equation; toys, on the final
consumption-side. Sensors and tools are
utilitarian, i.e., they serve a higher purpose; toys are
non-utilitarian, i.e., they have no purpose other than themselves. Collectively, sensors, tools and toys
constitute ‘instruments’.
The critical
difference between ancient and modern Science, leaving aside mathematics, is the
scientific instrument forcing Nature to reveal her secrets. Epistemologically Idhe calls this
‘instrumental realism’ (Idhe 1991). It
is the design, development and operation of instruments of ever increasing
sensitivity that has allowed humanity to pierce the veil of Nature, of
appearances, and establish human dominion.
Such instruments are not verbal constructs; they are tangible works of
technological intelligence that measure and manipulate Matter/Energy.
As we will see
the economics of biotechnology are fuelled by all three forms of knowledge –
personal, codified and tooled.
Ultimately, however, all knowledge is personal. Without a Natural Person to decode a work or
push the right button codified and tooled knowledge remain sterile artifacts
without meaning or function.
To understand the meaning of a ‘knowledge-based economy’ (OECD 1996), however, requires us to go a little further and define, in English, what we mean by knowledge rather than simply the forms that it takes. In English, however, it is difficult to distinguish ways of knowing because the verb ‘to know’ subsumes four different and distinct meanings. These include: to know by experience or acquaintance; to know by the senses; to know by the mind (derived from the verb ‘to wit’); and, to know by the doing (derived from the verb ‘can’ as in ‘can-do’ or ‘know-how’). In German there are separate verbs for each (Chartrand July 2006). Thus when people speak of a knowledge-based economy they generally mean a ‘can-do’ or ‘know-how’ economy, not an economy of the mind. One final contrast can be drawn between an information-based versus a knowledge-based economy or ‘KBE’. Knowledge is organized, systematized and retrievable information.
In 1995 the World Trade Organization (WTO) began operations and a new global economy was born (WTO 1994a). Today, 2007, virtually all member states of the United Nations (UN) belong to the WTO with the notable exception of the Russian Federation. Put another way, global regulation of political and military competition by the UN beginning in 1945 was extended to global regulation of economic competition by the WTO fifty years later. This was possible only because of the global triumph of the Market over Marx.
For the first time, virtually all nation-states agreed to abide by common rules of trade recognizing the WTO as final arbitrator of disputes and authorizing it to sanction countervailing measures against offenders of its rules. Given the historical role of trade disputes fueling international conflict, the WTO compliments the UN as a bulwark of international peace, law and order. As an international legal instrument, however, the WTO is a ‘single undertaking’, i.e., it is a set of instruments constituting a single package permitting only a single signature without reservation. One of these instruments is the Trade-Related Intellectual Properties and Services Agreement (TRIPS, WTO 1994b) that constitutes, in effect, a global agreement on trade in knowledge, or more precisely, in intellectual property rights (IPRs) such as copyrights, patents, registered industrial designs and trademarks. TRIPS is, however, but one part of the complex WTO package that includes the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and twenty-six other technical agreements.
TRIPS, in turn, exists in the context of a constellation of international agreements, conventions, covenants and treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO 1979) a special subject agency of the United Nations. TRIPS requires accession to some but not to all WIPO instruments. In turn, WIPO instruments apply only to Nations-States that accede to them. Generally, acceding States provide only ‘national treatment’ to citizens of other States, i.e., the same rights are extended as if they were nationals but the rights so extended are defined by each national legislature. This treatment contrasts with ‘harmonization’, characteristic of other WTO efforts, e.g., definition of subsidies. Currently ‘in force’ WIPO instruments, as well as TRIPS, ignore and thereby deny protection to ‘non-marketable’ intellectual property rights, e.g., aboriginal heritage rights (Farrer 1994; Chartrand 1995) including rights to traditional ecological knowledge or (TEK) as well as collective or community-based intellectual property rights in general (Shiva 1993). Such ignored rights, together with commercial rights that have lapsed through time, constitute the public domain of knowledge from which any and all may freely draw.
Creation of the WTO and recognition of the knowledge-based economy by the OECD initiated an avalanche of change. Almost immediately, rapid institution building began, continuing to this day, in public and private sectors around the world. A new specialty emerged – ‘knowledge management’, not to be confused with its predecessor - information management; the ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’ (CKO) is becoming an hierarchical feature of multi- and trans-national corporations; governments are creating knowledge ministries, departments and agencies; ‘knowledge audits’ are being conducted by firms and nation-states around the world (Malhorta 2000); and, nation-states themselves are designing ‘national innovation systems’ (NIS) to generate and market new knowledge (OECD 1997). Even a standardized lexicon or vocabulary is being drafted to guide public and private sector discussion and debate (American National Standards Institute and the Global Knowledge Economics Council 2001).
One qualification needs to be introduced at this time. The immeasurability of knowledge is demonstrated by the distinction between information and knowledge management (Bouthillier & Shearer 2002) or between ‘bits’ and ‘wits’ (Boulding 1966). Information theory involves storage and transmission of human knowledge in electronic rather than hardcopy or analogue format. These remain the domain of library science and the Dewey Decimal System. Electronic storage involves audio-video discs, tapes, databases, hard drives, e-books, etc. Transmission and reception requires hardware such as computers, radios, television sets and the Internet. ‘Analogue’ content is digitized for storage and transmission then reconverted into human-readable analogue format, e.g., sounds, pictures and words. The unit of digitization is the binary on/off ‘bit’: (0, 1). The ‘bit’, however, abstracts from the content of stored or transmitted information. The same number of bits could emerge from a telephone conversation between two teen-age girls in Saskatoon or between the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation. Bits don’t discriminate. Developed for the world of telecommunications and computers, the bit lends itself to quantitative analysis. It does not, however, provide a homogenous unit of knowledge, or what Kenneth Boulding calls ‘the wit’ (Boulding 1966, 2). The bit also makes no allowance for ignorance, i.e., the absence of knowledge. Without a wit, we are restricted to qualitative or descriptive analysis.
Immeasurability has not, however, stopped economists, among others. The ‘utile’ – Jeremy Bentham’s unit measure of pleasure and pain – is the foundation stone of modern economic analysis. We cannot, however, measure the pleasure and pain of an individual, nor can we add it up across individuals using felicitous calculus to estimate ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. The measurement problem is finessed through reification by proxy. That is, let us assume the utile can be reified, i.e., made concrete and calculable, specifically as money. In this philosophy, one works (suffering disutility) to earn income to buy goods and services to consume them, i.e., extract utility. The money price one pays on the market reflects the utility appropriated by the consumer. Some day the ‘wit’ too may be reified but at the moment there is no obvious proxy on the horizon
0.2 Biological Sciences: Wetware vs. Dryware
There are three
primary natural sciences– biology, chemistry and physics. Each breaks out into an ever widening range
of sub-disciplines and cross-disciplines, e.g., biochemistry. In each there are distinct engineering
specialties, e.g., chemical, genetic, mechanical and, electrical. It is from these that, today, most physical
technology flows. Price argued that the
relationship between Science and Technology is that of the research-front of
one relating to the previous generation or archive of the other. Thus Science operates with the previous
generation of Technology while Technology operates with the previous generation
of Science (Price 1965, 568).
Knowledge in the
Natural & Engineering Sciences (NES) is fact-based and subjected to
objective, value-free testing in which replicability of results is the
test. It is concerned with objective
truth, understanding and manipulation of the physical world. It exhibits decreasing tolerance through Time
for difference and error as old knowledge is progressively and reductively
displaced by the new, i.e., NES knowledge progresses vertically up the
ladder of Time. This assumes, however,
‘normal science’ within an established paradigm not a ‘scientific revolution’
leading to a quantum leap in understanding even with a ‘Kuhnian loss’ (Kuhn
1962, 1970, 1998: Fuller 2000).
When applied for
utilitarian purposes, NES knowledge generates physical technology, i.e.,
the ability to manipulate Matter/Energy to satisfy human want, needs and
desires. Using it in twenty-five
generations we have literally enframed our planet with hundreds of artificial
satellites enabling ourselves of planetary riches, making them ready at hand to
serve our purpose, from the deepest oceans to the outer reaches of the solar
system.
Biological
science is, however, different from physics and chemistry in a number of
ways. These include: the nature of
causality and the classification system used to order understanding of the
world around us.
First, causality in
biology differs from that associated with physics. Aristotle identified four causes of things to
be the way they are: (i) material cause: that out of which a thing is made, e.g.,
economic inputs; (ii) formal cause: the form or shape of the final thing, e.g.,
economic outputs; (iii) efficient cause: the initiating agent, e.g., the
entrepreneur or firm; and, (iv) final cause: end purpose or teleos, e.g.,
satisfaction of consumer wants, needs & desires plus a normal profit.
Among his many contributions Immanual Kant (1724–1804)
established, as a law of nature, that the formal notion of the if-then relationship corresponds to the
concept of cause and effect and that there is a single direction to causality, i.e.,
Time’s Arrow only moves from cause to effect, from the past into the
present and then out into the future by means of prediction (Grene & Depew
2004, 93-4). This law, however, was limited by Kant to matter
defined as lifeless stuff (objects) pushed or pulled by measurable forces
through Space/Time. This limitation was
required because it was apparent to Kant that material and efficient causes
(cause and effect) were insufficient to explain living things, i.e.,
biology.
Kant addressed the question of biology in his Critique of
Judgement (1790) which is divided into two parts. The first is the “Critique of Aesthetic
Judgment”; the second, the “Critique of Teleological Judgment”. The ordering is important. While works of technological intelligence, or
artifacts, have purpose, works of aesthetic intelligence have purposiveness or
meaningfulness but no purpose, i.e., no utilitarian function.
There were three aspects of living things that demonstrated
to Kant that teleological or final causes were at play. I will call these: ecology, metabolism and
ontogeny. First, he could see
that the web of mutually supportive relationships between various species of
plants and animals constituting an ecological community was so complex that
linear ‘when-then’ causality was simply insufficient to explain its
existence. Second, in the
metabolism of living things “each part is reciprocally means and end to every
other. This involves a mutual dependence
and simultaneity that is difficult to reconcile with ordinary causality” (Grene
& Depew 2004, 94). Third, in
ontogeny, or development of the individual, the future mature end-state
apparently guides successive stages of development. This is a clear case of formal and final
cause.
Having found teleological processes in living things Kant
was concerned to distinguish between Design and designer. This is, of course, a question that continues
to trouble contemporary society. To do
so, Kant distinguished between works of technological intelligence and living
things. Quite simply, parts of a machine
are put together by people and parts do not bring other parts into existence, i.e.,
a machine is not a self-organizing entity.
By contrast: an organism is “a product of nature in which everything is
both an end and also a means” and in which the parts are “reciprocally cause
and effect of [one another’sl form.” (Grene & Depew 2004, 98-99)
For Kant all works of technological intelligence are finally
caused by human purpose. Living things,
however, do not require human or divine purpose but rather reflect a ‘natural
purpose’. Kant called this form of
causality purposiveness. He was
so convinced of the inherent complexity of living things that he claimed:
it is absurd for human beings even
to attempt it, or to hope that perhaps some day another Newton might arise who
would explain to us, in terms of natural laws [cause and effect] unordered by
any intention, how even a mere blade of grass is produced. (quoted in Grene
& Depew, 2004, 94).
This constraint, as we will see, began to loosen with the discovery by Watson and Cricks of the DNA double helix some fifty years ago. Their finding that it could split into complementary strands established the physical basis for the encoding and transmission of genetic information within an individual organism and between generations. In this regard, the New York Times on June 13, 1953 ran an article entitled “Clue to Chemistry of Heredity is Found” calling DNA “a substance as important to biologists as uranium is to nuclear physicists.” (Overbye 2003). Gathering momentum ever since, genomics achieved critical mass in 1980 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Diamond vs. Chakrabarty (447 U.S. 303, [1980]). The case involved a patent for a genetically engineered microorganism that breaks down crude oil. The Court observed that Congress had the power to limit such patents but by failing to legislate specifically about genetic patents it had, in effect, allowed gene patenting. The Court’s rationale was based on the term ‘manufacture’ in Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act: “the production of articles for use from raw materials prepared by giving to these materials new forms, qualities, properties, or combinations whether by hand labor or by machinery.” Genes, the Court concluded, were material, i.e., they had tangible material form, even though invisible to the naked eye.
The decision led the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), after initial resistance, to grant genetic
patents. As they say, the rest is
history.
Second, biology uses
distinct classification systems or taxonomies to order its
subject matter. First, in theoretical
biology the world is divided into three spheres: the geosphere of inanimate
Matter/Energy; the biosphere of living things; and, the noösphere of human
thought. Second, the biosphere itself is
divided into kingdoms based on common forms (morphology) or on evolutionary
DNA. There are five morphological
kingdoms according to
Whitaker
including:
Kingdom
Monera
which is made up of prokaryotes, i.e.,
cells without a nucleus including bacteria and archaea, i.e., organisms originally thought to live only in inhospitable
conditions such as temperature, pH-extremes, and radiation. Archaea are considered by
Woese to constitute a
separate or sixth kingdom;
Kingdom
Protoctista
which is made up of eukaryotes, i.e.,
cells with a nucleus, that cannot be classified in any of the other kingdoms as
fungi, animals, or plants. In general
they acquire their food by extending their cell wall around the food material
to form a food vacuole;
Kingdom
Fungi
which is made up of eukaryotes such as yeasts, molds and mushrooms which, along
with bacteria, are the primary decomposers of organic matter;
Kingdom
Plantae
which is made up of eukaryotes such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses,
vines, ferns, and mosses that feed by photosynthesis; and,
Kingdom
Animalia
which is made up of eukaryotes that feed by consuming other organisms or parts
of them.
Kingdoms are, in turn, then progressively sub-divided into Phylum/Division, Class, Order, Family, Tribe, Genus and Species.
Morphological
division has been traditional in biology since the time of
Linnaeus in the 18th
century. With the discovery of the DNA
helix, however, a new method of classification has emerged based on genomics
beginning in the 1980s. DNA is based on
combinations of four nucleotides (or a qubit) made up of adenine (A), thymine
(T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). These
are always paired A-T or C-G. A sequence
of three pairs is called a codon encoding an amino acid. Amino acids, in turn, combine to form
proteins “the molecular machines of life” (Hood 2002). The study and manipulation of proteins is
called proteomics.
Today,
biotechnology involves the manipulation of the DNA code or the autobiography of
a species (Ridley 1999). Traditionally and unknowingly, this was done
through selective and cross-breeding of plants and animals. In this sense agriculture was the first
biotechnology. Direct manipulation of
genetic material, however, requires:
a)
the
personal knowledge or ‘know-how’ of molecular biology/chemistry
needed to effect a desired change;
b)
the
codified knowledge documenting the code’s norm state as well as the success or
failure of previous manipulations; and,
c)
the
tooled knowledge or instrumentation required to effect change in the living
code.
Different
sections of code generate specific proteins.
It is production of specific proteins, their higher order constructs
(such as enzymes) and the pathways of production that are the instrumental
objectives of genomics realized in its sister science, proteomics, i.e., the science of proteins.
Given the vast
array of living things on planet Earth and the different proteins developed and
coded by each in its evolutionary struggle for survival, there exists a
veritable cornucopia of possible protein codes that may be transferred from one
organism to another and/or between types of organisms (transgenetic). This implies the ability to adapt every
evolutionary success of every life form on the planet to the benefit of humanity.
Thus we can now
inject (or infect) ‘natural’ with human purpose. We are arguably beginning the final chapter
in human dominion over the Earth extending our grasp out from the geosphere to
the living core of the biosphere, its DNA.
One practical implication is that “it has become possible to think that
biology can, for the first time, join physics and chemistry as a
‘technoscience’” (Grene & Depew 2004, 345). And this, of course, brings us to the
question of biotechnology.
0.3
Product vs.
Process vs. Enabling or Transformative Innovation
In economics we
can identify three classes of innovation.
First, however, I must distinguish between invention and
innovation. An invention is a new
artifact or process to make an existing artifact. An innovation, however, is an invention that
is successfully brought to market, i.e.,
it pays its way. Product innovation thus
involves bringing a new product to market, e.g.,
the iPod. Process innovation
involves a new and generally more cost-effective way of making an existing
product, e.g., the
Bessemer
process in making steel.
An enabling
innovation or technology is a process innovation applicable in the production
of a wide range of different goods or services in different industries. The printing press, telegraph, telephone,
radio, television and the WWW Internet are examples of enabling technologies
used across all sectors of the economy.
As we will see biotechnology is an enabling technology with respect to
existing goods and services but it also promises many product innovations, i.e., new goods and services.
All three –
product, process and enabling innovations - involve the impact of new knowledge
on the economic process. The impact of
new knowledge on the production function or a firm is called technological
change. Why some things are invented and
others are not and why some inventions are successfully innovated and others
are not has been called ‘the measure of our economic ignorance’. As we will see, advances in biotechnology,
specifically bioinformatics, may in future aid economists in satisfying their
ignorance which literally means ‘want of knowledge’.
As an enabling
innovation biotechnology is like a tidal wave fast approaching the coast line
of modern society. The wake of its bow
has already arrived and the contours of the economy are slowly eroding and
reshaping. When the full crest hits
sometime in the next decade it will sweep deep inland altering the landscape of
human life forever. It has already
reached a number of sectors including agriculture, art, defense, environment,
health, informatics, justice and materials technology.
Some sectors
have already been altered dramatically.
This is especially true in agriculture where ‘GM’ food has become a cause célèbre in international trade
disputes between the European Union and NAFTA.
Even within agriculture, however, the impact of biotechnology is uneven
with plant genomics having a greater immediate impact than animal genomics. The
enabling nature of biotechnology, its very ‘newness’, the unevenness of its
impact and the varying techniques and technologies used in different sectors
presents a problem in the economics of biotechnology (Chartrand 2003).
In order to
maintain an overview we will use the Industrial Organization Model. This is now a well accepted part of economics
with its literature classified by the American Economic Association under
category ‘L – Industrial Organization’’ (AEA 2007).
At present this subject descriptor is formally available only with
respect to agricultural biotechnology (AgBioForum Subject Index L — Industrial Organization).
IO is the brain-child of the late
Joe Bain. His seminal work - Industrial Organization - was published
in 1959 (Bain 1968). Using IO, Bain
began what has become an ongoing process within the economics profession of
linking macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole) to microeconomics
(consumer, producer and market theory) to better understand the way the ’real’
world works.
It
can be called ‘meso-economics’ in contrast to micro- and macro-economics.
The IO Model takes the industry as
the basic unit of analysis. In effect it
is a taxonomy or classification system with limited predictive power. Its essential prediction is that Basic
Condition in an industry determines its Structure that in turn determines the
Conduct of its firms that then determines the collective Performance of firms
in the industry.
The IO schema (Exhibit 1) thus consists of four
parts. First, basic conditions
face an industry on the supply- (production) and demand-side (consumption) of
the economic equation. Second, an
industry has a Structure or organizational character, the primary elements of
which are barriers to entry, the number and size distribution of firms, product
differentiation, and the overall elasticity of demand. Third, firms in an industry tend to
follow typical patterns of Conduct or behavior in adapting and adjusting to a
specific but ever changing and evolving marketplace. Key variables in Conduct include pricing,
advertising, capacity, legal tactics and quality of output.
In policy terms, Conduct reflects the strategy of the firm in an industry.
Fourth,
an industry achieves varying levels of Performance with respect to contemporary
socio-economic-political goals defined broadly to include social performance,
allocative efficiency (profitability), technical efficiency (cost
minimization), and innovativeness.
We will also use four elemental economic terms. First, buyers and sellers exchange of goods and services in markets - geographic and/or commodity-based. Second, an enterprise is any entity engaging in productive activity - with or without the hope of making a profit. This includes profit, nonprofit and public enterprise as well as self-employed individuals. All enterprises have scarce resources and are accountable to shareholders and/or the public and the courts. An enterprise is defined in terms of total assets and operations controlled by a single management empowered by a common ownership. Third, an industry is a group of sellers of close-substitutes to a common group of buyers, e.g. the automobile industry. Fourth, a sector is a group of related industries, e.g. the automobile, airline and railway industries form part of the transportation sector. Often, as herein, ‘sector’ and ‘industry’ are used interchangeably, for example - the biotechnology industry or sector.
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