Is biotech labour arbitrage?
Rahul Patwardhan THE rising challenge to pharmaceutical and large biotech companies is being addressed largely by bioinformatics the use of computers to manage and analyse genetic data. The problem researchers face is not just information overload; but also the logistical difficulties of sharing data across an enterprise. The basic goal of bioinformatic companies, therefore, is to centralise information within a corporation, where different types of genetic data may be stored in different formats and in unconnected databases, and to give the corporation the tools to analyse that data. Though the opportunity bioinformatics presents is self-evident, the market all these companies are hotly pursuing is immature and hard to define in terms of dollar value. And rather than compete with one another in the near term, the diversifying established companies and bioinformatic start-ups will be vying with in-house development teams of the pharmaceutical companies their target customers. The estim
