Biotechnology Portals in Medicine

Abstract

The 2005 global revenues of publicly traded biotechnology companies have grown by 18.1% to $63.1 billion (Donn, 2006). Many countries are now investing in research and development in the biotechnology industry as it is believed this 30 year-old industry is moving toward profitability. The stock value in this industry has outperformed the average stock value in many countries. In the pre-genomic era, a typical life sciences company would have marketed diagnostic kits, assays, chemicals, measuring equipment, and research products to name a few. In the genomic era, a new range of products is marketed focusing on molecular medicine. Among these new products are bioinformatics software solutions, storage systems, biotechnology systems, and solutions researching into genes and proteins, tools for analysis of genetic sequence data, integrated systems and solutions for disease research, and new drug discovery (Cader, 2004). The need for biotechnology portals is now more than justified and will be a useful information and knowledge source.