CONGRESS was asked to set an appropriate policy environment to fast-track promotion of biotechnology industry development in the Philippines.

“Biodiversity is one of our greatest resources [but it] remains untapped. While we continue to train scientists, lack of local employment leads them either to other occupations or to foreign shores,” Sen. Edgardo Angara said recently.

This, even as the last decades of the 20th century “saw rapid advances in our knowledge of life and its mechanisms that have given rise to a new set of practical tools and techniques collectively referred to as biotechnology,” Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, added.

“With this generation hailed as the biotech century and concerns about climate change, nonrenewable-energy sources, dwindling freshwater supply, increasing population and environmental protection on one hand, and new discoveries in biology on the other, these factors are expected to greatly increase the number of technologies developed based on biological systems,” he said.

Angara pointed out that despite the government’s efforts in biotechnology, such as the establishment of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, the Department of Science and Technology’s priority investment in science parks for business incubation, and the Department of Agriculture’s research centers, these investments have not sufficiently fostered the growth of a biotech industry.

He noted that the US, Canada, Australia and several EU countries, as well as Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Taiwan, have put in place a policy environment that encourages bio-industry development.

These policies, he pointed out, include support for high-quality research, rapid research results for marketable products/services, support for start-up companies, and other incentives for industry to develop/adopt new technologies.

The senator added that large and competitive grants are also provided for high-quality research work in research institutions, as well as huge grants for industry-public collaborations to fast-track technology development, and guarantee funds for venture-capital investing in biotechnology.

“In the Philippines, we lack appropriate policy environment to promote bio-industry development. Many policies encourage individual rather than multidisciplinary achievements, while biotechnology requires a multidisciplinary approach and government funds for research cannot be committed for terms longer than one year, yet technology and product development may take years,” he said.

Angara explained that under Senate Bill 3140, the private sector is given incentives to invest in biotechnology research and development (R&D) by allowing the total R&D cost and prices of shares of stock in biotech companies as tax-deductible, and majority of the government’s investments in biotechnology R&D is awarded through a government corporation to lessen the burden of an unwieldy accounting and auditing system.

“This proposed legislation will address the weaknesses of our system and will enable the country to develop a biotechnology-based industry,” Angara asserted.