Biotechnology by Evens, Ronald P.;

Short description:

Biotechnology, over its relatively brief existence of 40 years, has experienced a mercurial growth. The vast educational need for biotechnology information in this rapidly burgeoning field is a basic rationale here. However a more prominent underpinning is to bring biotech products to market for patients care.

Long description:

The over-riding premise for biotechnology in this book is bringing novel products to market to substantially advance patient care and disease mitigation. Biotechnology, over its relatively brief existence of 40 years, has experienced a mercurial growth. The vast educational need for biotechnology information in this rapidly burgeoning field is a basic rationale here. However a more prominent underpinning is that, bringing biotech products to market for patient care involves success in the following four areas of engagement simultaneously - scientific advances for healthcare technologies, novel and varied products for untreated diseases, regulatory authorities, and biotech companies.

Features

• Comprehensive coverage of biotechnology science topics used in development and manufacturing








• Addresses all the scientific technologies within biotechnology responsible for products on the market and the pipeline








• Presents business issues such as marketing and sales of the products, as well as companies engaged, and how biotech business has evolved

This work by Evens (currently research professor and consultant, Tufts Univ. School of Medicine, Center for the Study of Drug Development) is, as its title signals, an overview of the various facets of biotechnology that seeks to make the complexity of the industry accessible to non-experts, and in this respect Evens is largely successful. Experts may find particular chapters to be simplistic or superficial, but this may be forgiven as the cost of providing easy entry for the novice. The noticeable inclusion of discipline-specific terms or jargon may prove challenging to some readers, but the motivated among them should not be stymied by a specialized vocabulary in a field of interest. One remarkable strength of the book is its clear demonstration that the biotech industry integrates contributions across various domains (e.g., science, business, regulatory), thereby illuminating the synergy that drives the biotech juggernaut. The author's inclusion of lengthy lists of biotech products seems unwarranted, especially as these will likely be outdated before long. Each chapter includes a substantial bibliography, a feature that would be more useful to scholars if inline references/citations were also included in the text. That said, this is an exceedingly useful overview of biotechnology for the well-informed non-expert seeking to understand or perhaps enter the industry.

--M. S. Kainz, Ripon College,