NEW
YORK, June 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --
Key takeaways
- The second installment in Deloitte's "xTech Futures" series
highlights BioTech as one of many "xTech" domains —
exponential and variable technologies that may prove to become
table stakes for future business strategies.
- Rich with case studies and interviews with biotechnology
pioneers, the report explores the current inflection point in
biotech access and opportunity, and helps
organizations identify their role in the biotech
economy through the lens of three chapters — "People,"
"Product" and "Planet."
- Biotechnologies are more relevant to a broad spectrum of
organizations than they may appear to be at first glance. The
biotech revolution is currently brewing, largely unnoticed, but is
poised to create a significant shift similar to the shift of
computation from analog to digital.
- The report also cautions the urgency of the challenges we face
— from climate change to global health crises, from food insecurity
to resource scarcity — and underscores that the solutions to these
challenges may lie in our ability to leverage biotech effectively
and responsibly, working with nature instead of against it.
Why this matters
Biotechnology is relevant today for
any enterprise that employs people (who seek to be healthier),
delivers products (that need to be more efficient and effective) or
is geographically located on planet Earth (which requires more
sustainable industry). Following the inaugural "xTech Futures"
report in 2023, which looked at space technologies, the 2024 report
explores a topic much closer to home. Less on what rests above us,
more on what lies within us. Among the findings: Biotechnologies
open up a market for more players to revolutionize health care,
leapfrog the competition, and restore the planet, delivering an
opportunity for businesses to engineer with biology in a new
era of corporate focus.
From rapidly engineered life-saving therapeutics, ecological
replacements for traditional textiles, and biological enzymes that
dissolve plastic waste, the biotech landscape has expanded to
include a wide array of innovations — and this report helps
organizations make sense of the change and pinpoint areas to play
in based on their specific goals.
Deloitte structures considerations for "People," "Product" and
"Planet," to reflect this breadth and the potential biotechnology
offers in each area:
- People: A century of learning and invention has taken
humankind from an average at-birth lifespan of 32 years to up to 80
years, from strep throat killing around one-fifth of those infected
prior to antibiotics to today being a minor inconvenience. Where
will the human experience go next, and could today's breakthroughs
extend our tomorrows, empowering us to live even longer and better
lives?
- Products: Once, synthetic materials represented a
technology high point. Now, we're learning that products can be
both engineered by humans and entirely natural in composition,
offering a unique chance to lower their ecological costs and
increase their efficiency and effectiveness while we reproduce
biological materials on our own terms. How does this shift affect
design, manufacturing and consumer behavior?
- Planet: It's possible the solution to climate change may
lie not with organizations but with organisms. Harnessing natural
processes can help heal air, soil and water; provide more
sustainable energy; and preserve biodiversity. Does the hope we
need for reactive restoration and proactive prevention of
ecological damage lie in biotech?
Key quotes
"It's intuitive that biotechnology innovations figure to improve
both the quality and span of human life. Less obvious, but equally
compelling, is biotech's potential to radically improve product
manufacturing and the health of the planet. Increasingly, the most
important cues we can take and build upon are the ones nature has
already established. We're evolving from manipulating nature to
emulating it."
- Mike Bechtel, chief futurist and managing director,
Deloitte Consulting LLP
"Biotechnology isn't just about building with biology — it's
about bringing humanity back in sync with nature. Since the
Industrial Revolution, so much of humanity's progress has been made
at nature's expense. Now, instead of depleting the natural world,
we can learn from and create with it, ushering in a new era where
both prosperity and the planet can coexist."
- Raquel Buscaino, U.S. novel and
exponential technologies lead, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Deloitte BioTech report highlights
From humanity's earliest days, the grace and efficiency of the
natural world has inspired our advancement, but modern
biotechnology takes our relationship with nature a step farther.
Humans today are not just being inspired by biology, we are
engineering with biology itself. Deloitte's report chronicles
this transformation and spotlights how life sciences, health care
services, consumer products and sustainable agriculture are
industries primed to see the benefits of biotechnologies most
immediately through first-person accounts of the experimentation
already taking place.
Biotechnology helps patients avoid unnecessary trips to the
doctor — and can help provide more accurate health data to
inform patients. It can increase the speed of drug discovery
and makes drugs safer by avoiding off-target issues and
development liabilities. It helps humankind grow more food
and protects the planet from the effects of mass
agriculture, while also guiding the creation of products and
packages that use circular materials with potentially endless reuse
and incentivizing us to ditch products that harm our planet.
Understanding the workings of life at their fundamental level even
has implications for a new generation of information
technology.
What will it take to unleash this potential? Part of the answer
may lie in coordination. Many of the players and innovations that
are poised to fuel coming advances are operating independently from
one another. Within this ecosystem, there is a place for conveners
to foster critical connections. Deloitte's IndustryAdvantage™
approach is one model that promotes that kind of collaboration and
cross-pollination across industries, organizations and
disciplines.
Looking ahead, the report finds many entrepreneurs believe
biotechnology will join artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum
computing as the major "step changes" of the coming
quarter-century. Among these three, biotechnology currently
receives the least fanfare. But that may change.
The exponential technologies in the new study don't fit into
familiar information technology categories, but they are just as
likely to change the ways we work and live. In this sense, the 2024
"xTech Futures" report is a complement to Deloitte's annual "Tech
Trends" report. What will your organization's role be?
To download the full xTech Futures BioTech report, visit
here.
About Deloitte
Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and
advisory services to many of the world's most admired brands,
including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500® and more than
8,500 U.S.-based private companies. At Deloitte, we strive to live
our purpose of making an impact that matters by creating trust and
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technology alliances to advise our clients across industries as
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the markets that are most important to them. Bringing more than 175
years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150
countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte's approximately
457,000 people worldwide connect for impact at
www.deloitte.com.
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