The marine biotechnology industry and equitable governance of marine genetic resources

The marine biotechnology sector is a pillar of the Blue Economy, and has generated anti-cancer drugs, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and enzymes for industrial and biomedical applications.

Yet the commercial activity associated with this frontier industry is located almost exclusively within less than a dozen developed countries.

Three simultaneous international negotiation processes are currently underway with ambitions to generate greater equity and transparency with regard to marine genetic resources and issues of access and benefit sharing.

But current and specific information on the scope, scale and value of this sector is lacking to inform these negotiations. We will conduct ambitious empirical research to better inform these international processes.

Specifically, we will: (1) catalogue genetic sequence data associated with marine species in the public domain; (2) characterise the functional traits of the proteins within these sequences; (3) identify which of these sequences have been associated with patents; and (4) collect information about the value of the patented innovations and the associated research and development costs.

This will allow us to assess the diversity of marine genetic resources and the distinct range of functional traits compared with non-marine life.

A cornerstone of this project will be to inform ongoing policy processes by making all of the data (1-4) available online in an easily accessible, transparent and interactive manner.