Word: biotech
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...outcry in France indeed portends global trouble, it's by no means clear whether it ought to. For all the controversy that GM technology is causing, the fact is that biotech companies have succeeded in dreaming up some extraordinary plants. Monsanto, which produces the hugely popular herbicide Roundup, has made just as big a hit with its line of genetically modified crops that are immune to the Roundup poison--thanks to a gene that company scientists tweezed out of the common petunia and knitted into their food plants. Other GM crops have been designed to include a few scraps...
...biotech companies such as Monsanto, based in the U.S., and Novartis AG, based in Switzerland, the rise of GM technology has meant boom times. Sales of GM seeds rose in value from $75 million in 1995 to $1.5 billion last year, and the crops they produce are turning up not only on produce shelves but also in processed foods from cookies to potato chips to baby food...
...sometimes numbers alone can paint a pretty clear picture. Take Chemdex.com a vertical e-market based in Palo Alto, Calif., developed for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in 1997. Chemdex is reducing sales and distribution costs industrywide by 20%--more than $4 billion of the total $20 billion global life-sciences research-products market, according to Volpe Brown analyst Finnie. "In effect," he says, "Chemdex is turning around to the chemical producers, and it is saying, 'Congratulations! This is your lucky day. You just won the lottery. Here's a check for $4 billion.' These guys have not seen their...
...possible breakthrough in Alzheimer's research, I found myself once again negotiating a tightrope between real promise and false hope. One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's is the formation of sticky clumps of protein, called amyloid plaques, in the brains of affected patients. Scientists from Elan Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company headquartered in Ireland, reported they had produced a vaccine that could prevent plaques from forming and dissolve existing ones in the brains of mice. They speculated that a similar approach might be used to treat people...
...have a distinct advantage at producing superior agricultural and meat products,? he says, ?and that they will lose a big market share.? The latest Agricultural Department move is unlikely to soften European opposition immediately. But at the very least, it promises to expose the smug confidence of many biotech proponents to the fresh air of some independent analysis...