The Department of Agriculture (DA) is embarking on a P1-billion biotechnology program that will tap Philippine indigenous plant species for value-added processing into pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food products.

Agriculture Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban said DA is mapping out an integrated biotechnology program.

"We're working on a program that will use indigenous materials for pharmaceuticals, condiments, or other uses so that DA will have an integral operation in biotechnology," Panganiban said in an interview.

Alicia G. Ilaga, DA biotechnology program director, said DA's proposal is still set for approval and for funding under the General Appropriations Act approved DA budget.

"We already have a roadmap, but it has yet to be approved. The target is to supply the world market with products that use natural ingredients. We're playing a jigsaw puzzle here-putting small pieces together so that we'll have a biotech industry that will enable us to export to the world market," Ilaga said in a separate interview.

Records show that there is a -billion market in Japan, US, Korea, and Europe for herbal pharmaceutical ingredients or products for which the Philippines can carve a niche for itself.

The Philippines has vast biodiversity or natural resources that can be rich source of innovative medicinal and food products.

"In the Philippines, we have Banaba, Lagundi, Damong Maria. We have indigenous materials that already have active pharmaceutical ingredients while they in the US have yet to genetically modify resources just to obtain those ingredients," she said.

The biotechnology program proposes the use of an existing DA-attached corporation such as the National Agribusiness Corp. (NABCOR) or Philippine Genetics Inc. to run biotechnology operations under which government will be sharing the risks and the profits of biotechnology ventures.

However, over the long term, the aim is to entice the private sector to risk capital and fund biotechnology research and development (R&D).

"We're setting directions for research and development, and then we'll get it incubated. It's really the private sector which should support this industry. It's not the business of government to be in business. In everything, we want to bring projects to a point that there are private sector takers to sustain it," she said.

To cut costs and maximize benefits, the biotechnology program has proposed the use of existing laboratories and equipment of the Bureau of Animal Industry and Bureau of Plant Industry. These facilities will be established in a site that will be open for private and public use.

Since a major problem of most technologies developed by Filipinos is marketing, the program aims to find markets for these technologies.

"If we can set up markets for these technologies, just imagine how many thousands of hectares will benefit from these?" she said.

For reforestation, instead of merely using forest species such as gmelina, government can encourage reforesting using banaba trees which can serve as source of corosolic acid, a medicinal ingredient used to cure diabetes and which has a huge market owing to nine million cases of diabetes in the country. A biotechnology center will also have locations for lease to the private sector. Revenue generation will be shared between private users and the government.

The program has so far planned the development of local pharmaceutical herbs like Banaba, Sambong, Lagundi for valueadded processing and eventual export

It will also nurture the putting up of venture capitals where investors can be convinced to finance technologies that have high profitability and high marketability potentials stemming from the technology's innovation or market dominance.

"An incubation facility and a venture capital fund will leapfrog the biotechnology industry," she said.

The biotechnology center will also be a venue for pilot-testing of new technologies.

"To commercialize a technology, we have to do it first on laboratory scale and then pilot it in a small scale level to test the market, to test the product," she said.