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Since 1982, hundreds of millions of people worldwide
have been helped by more than 230
biotechnology drugs and vaccines. There
are more than 400
biotech drug products
and vaccines
currently in clinical
trials targeting
more than 200
diseases, including
various cancers,
Alzheimer's disease,
heart
disease, diabetes,
multiple sclerosis,
AIDS and arthritis.
 Biotechnology
is responsible for hundreds of medical
diagnostic tests that keep the blood
supply safe from the AIDS virus and
detect other conditions early enough
to be successfully treated. Home pregnancy
tests are also biotechnology
diagnostic products.
And there's more to come ó
biotechnology is one of the most
research-intensive industries in the
world, spending $20.4 billion on
research and development in 2005.
Who benefits? If you are with your
family right now, you're looking at
people who are benefiting from biotechnology.
Give them a hug, and read on.
Has a member of your family been
vaccinated against hepatitis B, either
separately or as part of an infant or child-hood vaccination regimen? If so, you have
biotechnology to thank for protection
against this sometimes fatal disease that
attacks millions of people each year.
Because the vaccine prevents infection-related
liver damage that can result in
liver cancer, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention calls this “the
first anti-cancer vaccine.”
 Do you know someone who has diabetes?
Before 1982, there were few
options for insulin-dependent diabetics
who were allergic to animal-derived
insulin. That year, a human version of
the drug entered the market ñ
the first ever
biotechnology
medicine to be
commercialized.
Recombinant
insulin is still
saving lives
today, and the
next few years
may bring
inhaled forms of
insulin and
other new diabetes drugs that reduce
the devastating impact of this disease.
 Has anyone in your family had heart
disease? Heart disease is still a leading
killer of adults, but its toll is dropping.
From 1993 to 2003, the death rate from
coronary heart disease dropped 30.2
percent, due in part to the introduction,
beginning in 1987, of new biotechnology-
based “clot buster” drugs, which allow
emergency room doctors to dissolve
blockages causing heart attacks. The
first drug approved in this class is now
used to treat a stroke in progress. The
result is that a significant percentage of
each year’s 5,500,000 victims of stroke
in the United States may have reduced
disability if this treatment
is given quickly.
If a member of your family is diagnosed
with breast cancer, leukemia,
lymphoma or another cancer, it will help
you to know that biotechnology has
enabled therapies over the past 20 years
that are working miracles. A growing
percentage of cancer patients are surviving
and returning to good health
thanks to these breakthroughs.
Some diseases are more likely to
strike the women in your family.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a good example.
The disease afflicts two million people ñ
mostly women ñ often during early or
middle adulthood. Today, biotechnology
drugs that slow the painful, joint-destroying
progression of the disease
are helping tens of thousands of women.
 These improvements in health care
for you and your family are just a small
sample of the benefits biotechnology
has brought ñ and will continue to bring
in the future. New products in advanced
testing or under consideration for
approval at the FDA include medications
for cancer, psoriasis, lupus,
stroke, HIV (both treatments and
vaccines), sickle-cell disease, diabetes, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration and
rare genetic diseases.
Biotechnology is helping to keep all
members of the family healthy, including
the family pet. New veterinary biopharmaceuticals
provide better disease
treatment, including anti-inflammatory
drugs to treat arthritis or musculoskeletal
pain in animals. Other biotech products
eliminate pets' internal parasites;
antibiotics are used to treat bacterial
infections and sedatives are used to
calm animals during the administration
of anesthesia.
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