The DTI in the UK sent a Global Watch Mission team to California last year to look at biosensors and biosensing "major global industries, with the worldwide total annual sales of medical biosensors exceeding £2.8 billion in 2003". The team has just reported back.
Biosensors, "compact analytical devices field including: incorporating a biological sensing element coupled with a transducer," are going places.
When a small team went on a a Global Watch Mission it found "a thriving community of companies, academic institutions and national laboratories involved in the development of biosensing technologies throughout California". So much so that the "biosensor industry is now comparable
in size to that of a fair size consumer product and is growing rapidly".
in size to that of a fair size consumer product and is growing rapidly".
It helps that there is, as the report of the mission "Biosensing Technologies for Medical and Homeland Security Applications" says, a good research to support it: "The academic and research base is expanding rapidly and furnishing a wealth of new technology."
But don't get the idea that the USA leaves the rest of the world in the dust when it comes to biosensors. When the World Technology Evaluation Center looked at "International Research And Development In Biosensing" a couple of years ago, it found that "Both Europe’s and Japan’s communication infrastructures are better suited for networked biosensing applications than those of the United States. Integrated biosensing research groups are more common in Europe and Japan."
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