Why Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Is Betting Big On The $1T US Bioeconomy

After being on the helm for over a decade of web juggernaut Google
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, former CEO Eric Schmidt has switched gears and one among his newest actions is being an advocate for the fast-growing US bioeconomy, which is valued at over $1T. Throughout his keynote on the 2022 SynBioBeta convention in Oakland, CA final 12 months, he handed alongside recommendation for the following technology of biotechnologists, detailing what is required from totally different stakeholders to meet the potential of the worldwide bioeconomy to resolve the world’s greatest issues. I caught up with Schmidt once more just lately, a 12 months since his speak, to see what progress has been made. You can see the full Q&A here.

“I believe it’s time. It’s time to take the work of the final 10 or 20 years and make it scale to a world phenomenon that’s 4-30 trillion {dollars}. You all will do this. That’s why I’m right here.” Schmidt defined to a packed home.

Over 60% of products on this planet will be manufactured by way of biology—this not solely represents a possibility to make these processes extra environment friendly and sustainable by way of biotechnology however hundreds of thousands of latest blue-collar jobs throughout a number of industries. From the scientists and engineers that carry new merchandise to life, to the individuals who function the bioreactor, to those that create rules that allow such improvements to succeed in their markets, and eventually, to the founders of those new enterprises.

In biotech, corporations like Genentech and BioNTech have demonstrated how years of lab analysis can flip into options that scale to serve billions. As an illustration, meals and agriculture corporations like Not possible Meals are driving down the price of sustainable protein. Moreover, newer waves of biomaterials corporations like LanzaTech, Visolis, Geno, and Biomason are making it attainable to develop the whole lot from concrete to wooden, utilizing solely a fraction of the pure assets that typical strategies use.

“Prior to now, we used to say plastics, plastics, plastics. Now we’ll say protein, protein, protein,” mentioned Schmidt.

Curiously, Schmidt made it clear that to cease native corporations from outsourcing their operations, the US must construct a nationwide, shared infrastructure that enhances the home bioeconomy. Put one other approach, the US must construct an official governmental dwelling for bioeconomy pursuits.

From a regulatory standpoint, the Bioeconomy Executive Order put into place by the Biden administration final September will systematically shift how the US coordinates and strategically advances its bioeconomy objectives towards a number of targets, together with carbon administration, financial improvement, biosecurity, biosafety, and the workforce of the longer term.

“One can hope that these actions will embody a deliberate concentrate on shifting engineering biology discoveries from lab to market, serving to new know-how builders by way of new mortgage applications for biomanufacturing infrastructure, in addition to by way of newly streamlined, clear regulatory processes,” Schmidt remarked.

Investments within the subsequent technology of bioproduction tools, equivalent to bioreactors, are additionally wanted to succeed in business scale. With that in thoughts, in June of 2021, BioMADE, a Division of Protection public-private partnership effort to bolster US biomanufacturing, issued a particular Project Call on advancing bioreactor design and improvement, with help from Schmidt Futures and sponsorship by the Engineering Biology Analysis Consortium (one other non-profit, public-private partnership). Virtually a 12 months later, in March of 2022, BioMADE introduced 5 new tasks on bioreactor innovation.

The BioMADE mannequin enhances the chance of profitable partnerships for quite a few causes. Principally, a thriving bioeconomy will depend on distributing manufacturing evenly throughout the nation, not simply within the identified coastal hubs of biotechnology equivalent to Boston and San Francisco—a profit for BioMade, which relies within the US heartland and centered within the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. Furthermore, members co-invest in tasks, presenting alternatives to go additional than they are able to in lots of tutorial or for-profit settings. Lastly, the BioMADE ecosystem strongly emphasizes sharing the brand new instruments and applied sciences that they create whereas preserving proprietary info—a collaboration mannequin that’s desperately wanted to advance the sector within the public curiosity.

Whenever you’re the top of an organization like Google for a lot of years, it will be tough to not have an opinion on AI and its influence sooner or later. When requested about it, Schmidt, notably identified the significance of creating an AI-biology symbiosis. “At this second, the usage of AI instruments within the scientific and engineering analysis ecosystem continues to be within the early adopter stage,” he mentioned. “Regardless that the exponential progress of machine studying and cloud computing and the dramatic advances in producing knowledge about dwelling techniques by way of next-generation DNA sequencing and single-cell genomics are already recreation changers, there’s nonetheless much more to find. And AI can actually drive this strategy of scientific discovery.”

But, after we assess all of the sharp insights that Eric Schmidt has offered about easy methods to advance the bioeconomy, it could be this final level that’s the most precious—and seemingly, the simplest: collaboration and variety. That is an space that Schmidt has been vocal about on quite a few events, and to drive his level dwelling he anecdotally recalled that regardless of being in direct competitors with Yahoo, they often celebrated one another, figuring out {that a} win for both firm was actually a win for the trade. In the identical spirit, he known as on the following technology of artificial biologists to see their rivals not solely as opponents however as companions too. Silicon Valley has taught us that various teams of proficient folks can construct options that scale globally. Artificial biology is stylish and up to date as science disciplines go, and extra folks must get excited by the potential this subject holds as a result of issues just like the bioeconomy won’t develop on their very own. And progress in these industries is what’s wanted to enhance the human situation.

Thanks to Sofia Sanchez for extra analysis and reporting on this text. I’m the founding father of SynBioBeta, and a few of the corporations I write about, together with LanzaTech and Visolis, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference. For extra content material, you may subscribe to my weekly newsletter and observe me on Twitter and LinkedIn.