Why is the bio industry developing slower than many expected?

An interesting situation has come about in the bio technology industry. Many folks are disappointed at the pace of growth of the industry and a big reason for that is that the technology is growing too rapidly.

Lots of companies would like to build that production plant, however, there is a huge risk with the technology expanding so rapidly. If you break ground today on a 200 million dollar plant that will take two years to build, that plant has a high probability of being outdated by industry technological breakthrus long before it is ready to start production.

Now there is something that will give your banker heart burn; so the strategy is often to procrastinate. Let someone else take the early bullets.

Of course, often much of the supporting infrastructure of any bio processing facility is reusable; tanks and scales, conveyors and shipping docks.

And some companies are finding bankrupt plants to buy, for the supporting infrastructure, and then tearing the hardly used production portions out and replacing them with up to date processes.

If you have deep enough pockets to build the supporting infrastructure first, and if you keep a large stash of cash for those major expected last minute changes in technology; you could do a last minute technology update on the building plans. Much cheaper than tearing out nearly brand new production infrastructure.

This will also keep your bankers awake at night, yet it might be the best strategy under the circumstances.

Trying to come up with projections when all the numbers will change by intention will be a hard sell in the bankers board rooms. Of course, many of those financial projections we draw up should be given literary awards for best fiction anyway, and the bankers know that too.

So, the solution may well be to present your building plans to the bankers as a two step plan. Build the supporting infrastructure and buildings first. Then when they are completed, do your process plan using what ever technologies are available at that point in the future and plug it in.

Perhaps by then, there will be more process modules available that you literally can offload from the truck and plug in. As we climb the Moores Curve of bio technology development, plug ands play production modules could become the future of bio technology processing and updating.