Bioeconomy refers to all economic activity derived from scientific and research activity focused on understanding mechanisms and processes at the genetic and molecular levels and its application to industrial process. It is often used interchangeably with biotechonomy.

The term is widely used by regional development agencies, international organizations, biotechnology companies. It is closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry. The ability to study, understand and manipulate genetic material has been possible due to scientific breakthroughs and technological progress.

The evolution of the biotechnology industry and its application to agriculture, health, chemical or energy industries is a classic example of bioeconomic activity.

History

The term was first defined by Juan Enriquez

Juan Enriquez

Juan Enríquez was the founding director of the Life Sciences Project at Harvard Business School and a fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs. His work has been published in Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Science, and The New York Times. He is the author of As the Future...

 and Rodrigo Martinez

Rodrigo Martínez

Rodrigo Martínez was a Leonese nobleman, landowner, courtier, military leader, governor, and diplomat, "the most powerful lay figure in the region of the western Tierra de Campos," who "emerges as far and away the most regular visitor to the court of Alfonso VII between 1127 and 1138." He was a...

 at the Genomics Seminar in the 1997 AAAS

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

 meeting. An excerpt of this paper was published in Science Magazine

Science Magazine

Science Magazine was a half-hour television show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1975 to 1979.The show was hosted by geneticist David Suzuki, who previously hosted the daytime youth programme Suzuki On Science...

."

Enriquez and Martinez' 2002 Harvard Business School working paper, "Biotechonomy 1.0: A Rough Map of Biodata Flow", showed the global flow of genetic material into and out of the three largest public genetic databases: GenBank

GenBank

The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. This database is produced and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information as part of the International Nucleotide Sequence...

, EMBL and DDBJ. The authors then hypothesized about the economic impact that such data flows might have on patent creation, evolution of biotech startups and licensing fees. An adaptation of this paper was published in Wired

Wired (magazine)

Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...

magazine in 2003.