Introduction to Biotechnology
In 1919, Karl Ereky, a Hungarian engineer, coined the term biotechnology to describe the interaction of biology and human technology. He envisioned a new era of technology based on using biology to turn raw materials into socially useful products. Nearly a century later, Ereky’s vision is being realized by thousands of companies and research institutions. Modern biotechnology began in the 1970s in Northern California and has since grown into a worldwide industry. Amgen, founded in 1980, was one of the first companies to realize the new field’s promise by bringing biotechnology medicines to patients.
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To bring a new drug to market (from discovery through clinical trials and FDA approval) costs an estimated $1 billion and can take 10 to 15 years or longer.* Only one in 10 new drugs that makes it into human testing actually makes it to market. Given this high failure rate and the tremendous cost of bringing a new therapy to market, companies depend on successful drugs to produce enough revenue to compensate for both the R&D costs of the successful therapies and the expense of failed ones.
Amgen Scholars is an international program funded by the Amgen Foundation with direction and technical assistance
provided in the United States by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in Europe by the University of Cambridge.