marine drugs Article Marine Biotechnology: Challenges and Development Market Trends for the Enhancement of Biotic Resources in Industrial Pharmaceutical and Food Applications. A Statistical Analysis of Scientific Literature and Business Models Sara Daniotti * and Ilaria Re Consorzio Italbiotec, 20138 Milan, Italy;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Biotechnology is an essential tool for the sustainable exploitation of marine resources, although the full development of their potential is complicated by a series of cognitive and techno- logical limitations. Thanks to an innovative systematic approach that combines the meta-analysis of 620 articles produced worldwide with 29 high TRL (Technology Readiness Level) European funded projects, the study provides an assessment of the growth prospects of blue biotechnologies, with a focus on pharmaceutical and food applications, and the most promising technologies to overcome the main challenges in the commercialization of marine products. The results show a positive de- velopment trend, with publications more than doubled from 2010 (36) to 2019 (70). Biochemical and molecular characterization, with 150 studies, is the most widely used technology. However, the emerging technologies in basic research are omics technologies, pharmacological analysis and Citation: Daniotti, S.; Re, I. Marine bioinformatics, which have doubled the number of publications in the last five years. On the other Biotechnology: Challenges and hand, technologies for optimizing the conditions of cultivation, harvesting and extraction are cen- Development Market Trends for the tral to most business models with immediate commercial exploitation (65% of high-TRL selected Enhancement of Biotic Resources in projects), especially in food and nutraceutical applications. This research offers a starting point Industrial Pharmaceutical and Food for future research to overcome all those obstacles that restrict the marketing of products derived Applications.