How $2 Billion Grows the Bioeconomy
On September 12, the Biden Administration issued an executive order titled, "Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure Bioeconomy."
The E.O. will inject $2 billion into the US bioeconomy by bolstering US capacity in high-value, high-tech goods made from biological resources, such as alternative proteins, sustainable farming inputs, and pharmaceutical biotech. Research, development and scaling of bio-based technologies will serve agricultural, commercial, defense, energy, health, and manufacturing sectors.
The E.O. prescribed how the money would be spent (if you'd like details, they are in this article), but I wondered how I would spend the $2 billion to make the biggest impact. I also wondered how people I knew would suggest we spend that money.
I reached out to Mars VC and LabDAO co-founder Arye Lipman (who we recently interviewed), who answered:
$1B for biomanufacturing infrastructure, including something like a loan programs office to finance first-of-its-kind plants… more direct deployment into startups through non-SBIR methods - maybe investment (though government probably can’t hold equity)… non-recourse loans/venture debt. And a big chunk for more training for bioprocess engineers, regulatory experts, and maybe pre-competitive tool building in strain engineering and downstream processing (DSP)…
Arye and I asked our networks. The fascinating answers ranged from:
a national lab in every region to work on regional issues,
a fermentation city,
more education, training, community labs,
investing in non-model photosynthetic microbes to advance photo-bioreactor designs, and
automation.
Of course, optimism has must tempered with reality. Dev Majumdar of the University of Vermont pointed out:
”$2B is 1/30th of an aircraft carrier. By the time it gets to the bench scientists, it will be less than $0.5B. Because these things are political, let’s say we end up with $0.25B. At that point, you can only justify funding what works (i.e. low risk, more of the same). So I question the premise.“
What would I do if I were suddenly given the magic wand and had to spend that $2B? Well first, I’d talk to you, dear reader, the smartest people I know. But based on my conversations with others, I’d imagine we’d agree to do something like:
$1B: Create six biomanufacturing hubs - one for each of the economic regions in the U.S. This can help solve regional issues and increases access to local talent and biomass while localizing production to decrease transportation costs and access.
$250M: Accelerate the commercialization of biobased products.
$250M: Develop open-access biolabs.
$150M: Fund more standards and facilitating regulatory approvals.
$150M: Fund government procurement commitments to buy bio-based.
$125M: Fund worker retraining to increase the workforce,
$125M: Invested in storytelling, media training of scientists, and media.
$100M: Develop open-source projects (because open source is what the internet revolution was built on).
So, what about you? Where would you like to see the $2 Billion spent to grow the bioeconomy? Let us know here.