The second installment of Deloitte’s “xTech Futures” series focuses on biotechnology as one of many “xTech” domains – a fast-paced and transformative technology that may become a prerequisite for future business strategies. Rich with case studies and interviews with biotech pioneers, the report explores the current inflection point in biotechnology access and opportunity and helps organizations identify their role in the biotech economy through three chapters: “People,” “Products,” and “Planet.” Biotechnology is more relevant to a wider range of organizations than it may seem at first glance. The biotech revolution is currently running largely unnoticed, but it is poised to create profound changes akin to the transition from analog to digital computing. The report also warns of the urgency of the challenges we face, from climate change to global health crises, food insecurity to resource scarcity, and highlights that the solutions to these challenges may lie in our ability to harness biotechnology effectively and responsibly, working with nature rather than against it.
Why is this important?
Biotechnology is relevant today for any company that employs people (aiming to be healthier), delivers products (needing to be more efficient and effective) or is geographically located on Earth (needing more sustainable industries). Following the first xTech Futures report in 2023, which featured space technologies, the 2024 report features a topic closer to home; focusing on what is inside of us rather than what is above us. Findings include: Biotechnology opens markets for more players to revolutionize healthcare, leapfrog competitors and restore the planet, providing opportunities for companies to engineer with biology in a new era of focus.
As the biotechnology sector expands to include a wide range of innovations — rapidly developed life-saving therapeutics, eco-friendly alternatives to traditional fibers, and biological enzymes that break down plastic waste — this report helps organizations understand the change and identify areas to focus on based on their specific goals.
To reflect this breadth and biotechnology’s potential in each area, Deloitte has structured its considerations around “people,” “product” and “planet.”
Humans: A century of learning and invention has increased the average human lifespan from 32 to up to 80 years, and strep throat, which before antibiotics killed roughly one-fifth of infected people, is now just a minor inconvenience. Where is the human experience heading in the future? Will today’s breakthroughs extend our future and allow us to live longer, better lives? Products: Synthetic materials were once the pinnacle of technology. Now we are discovering that products can be engineered by humans and can even be entirely natural in composition. This offers a unique opportunity to lower the environmental cost of products and increase their efficiency and effectiveness while uniquely replicating biological materials. How will this change impact design, manufacturing, and consumer behavior? Earth: The solution to climate change may lie in living organisms, not tissues. Harnessing natural processes can help repair air, soil, and water, provide more sustainable energy, and protect biodiversity. Is biotechnology the hope we need for reactive repair and proactive prevention of ecological damage?
Important Quotes
“It makes intuitive sense that innovations in biotechnology will improve both the quality and longevity of human life. Less obvious, but equally compelling, is the potential for biotechnology to dramatically improve product manufacturing and the health of the planet. The most important cues we can adopt and build from are increasingly becoming what nature has already established. We are evolving from manipulating nature to mimicking it.”
Mike Bechtel, Chief Futurist and Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting LLP
“Biotechnology is not just about building with biology. It’s about putting humanity back in harmony with nature. Since the Industrial Revolution, much of humanity’s progress has come at the expense of nature. Now, by learning from and creating with nature rather than depleting it, we can usher in a new era of prosperity and a planet that can coexist.”
Raquel Buscaino, U.S. Emerging and Exponential Technologies, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Deloitte Biotechnology Report Highlights
Since the beginning of humanity, the grace and efficiency of the natural world have driven human progress, but modern biotechnology takes our relationship with nature a step further. Today, humanity is not only inspired by biology, but we are engineering it with biology. Deloitte’s report chronicles this transformation, highlighting how life sciences, health care services, consumer goods and sustainable agriculture are industries where biotechnology’s benefits are most immediately apparent, through accounts from leading experts in the experiments already underway.
Biotechnology can help patients avoid unnecessary doctor visits and provide more accurate health data to inform patients. Biotechnology can speed up drug discovery and make medicines safer by avoiding off-target problems and development liabilities. Biotechnology can help humanity produce more food and protect the planet from the effects of mass agriculture, and it can also lead to the creation of products and packaging made from circular materials that can potentially be infinitely reused, providing incentives to throw away products that harm the planet. Understanding how life works at a fundamental level will also influence new generations of information technology.
What will it take to unlock this potential? Part of the answer may lie in collaboration. Many of the players and innovations that will drive future progress operate independently of one another. This ecosystem provides a convening space to foster those vital connections. Deloitte’s IndustryAdvantage™ approach is one model for facilitating such collaboration and cross-pollination across industries, organizations, and disciplines.
Looking to the future, the report found that many entrepreneurs believe biotechnology will join artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing as the big “changers” over the next 25 years. Of the three, biotechnology has received the least attention so far, but that may be about to change.
The exponential technologies highlighted in the new study do not fit into the general category of information technology, but they are just as likely to transform the way we work and live. In this sense, the 2024 “xTech Futures” report complements Deloitte’s annual “Tech Trends” report. What is your organization’s role?
To download the full xTech Futures BioTech report, click here.
About Deloitte
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Source: Deloitte
