The term "Biotech" may also be applied to pharmaceutical companies, though this term is usually reserved for the smaller pharmaceutical companies or those small pharma companies that focus on the production of more "biologicals" (e.g. antibodies, enzymes) rather than small molecule drugs. Profits are very high but unstable, since it commonly takes more than a decade and potentially billions of dollars to bring a new drug to market, and many promising drugs fail to make it due to safety, efficacy, and absorption issues. Once on the market, patents protect it for 17 years. In recent years the international industry has been consolidated as very large companies buy out large companies and biotechs. Along with improved nutrition and sanitation, the drugs produced by the pharmacological industry can be credited for much of the extension of the human lifespan in the 20th and 21st centuries. | The term "Biotech" may also be applied to pharmaceutical companies, though this term is usually reserved for the smaller pharmaceutical companies or those small pharma companies that focus on the production of more "biologicals" (e.g. antibodies, enzymes) rather than small molecule drugs. Profits are very high but unstable, since it commonly takes more than a decade and potentially billions of dollars to bring a new drug to market, and many promising drugs fail to make it due to safety, efficacy, and absorption issues. Once on the market, patents protect it for 17 years. In recent years the international industry has been consolidated as very large companies buy out large companies and biotechs. Along with improved nutrition and sanitation, the drugs produced by the pharmacological industry can be credited for much of the extension of the human lifespan in the 20th and 21st centuries. |