Ethanol production, FFVs, E85 fuel , and ICM are growing

Ethanol production, FFVs, E85 fuel availability, and ICM are growing exponentially.

The growth trend in the industry has been mirrored by the increase in FFVs on the road—more than 6 million in 2007—with 9 million projected by 2009. In March 2007, ICM’s process technology was responsible for a little more than 2 BGY of the country’s total 5.8 BGY capacity, while the company employed more than 600 people with projections to hit 750 by the end of 2007. To accommodate the growth and increase in equipment manufacturing, ICM began construction of an 16,000 sq. ft. wing to its South building, a 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse, and a new 11,200 ft. office across the street from the main campus.

It's still (essentially) your great-grandfather's great-grandfat

Did you know that the ethanol in the ethanol-enriched gasoline many Americans are filling up with today is virtually the same alcohol Lewis and Clark burned in their oil lamps back in the 1800s? Or that it's basically the same renewable fuel Henry Ford used to power his horseless carriage?

Since the era of lamp-lit nights and crank-start cars, ethanol production has become exponentially more efficient. History's sporadic support for ethanol has taken an upswing too, pushing biofuels into the media spotlight with President George W. Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address, which called for a fuels standard of 35 billion gallons per year (BGY) of renewable fuels by 2017.

While fuel ethanol itself has remained virtually unchanged, it's come a long way in the past 180 years

BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY CONTINUES TO LOSE MONEY

The biotechnology industry continues to face losses and is not expected to make a profit until the year 2009, according to a recently published Ernst and Young report.

The biotechnology industry lost a combined $6.4 billion last year, bringing the industry's total accrued loss since its birth in Silicon Valley in the mid-1970s to more than $45 billion. The report is, however, optimistic that biotechnology will become profitable by 2009, pointing to some 365 drugs in the final stages of development compared with 290 in 2003.

The industry’s continuing losses should be sobering news for the many countries which are embarking on or plan to launch their biotechnology industries. An economist likens the industry to a gambling den where the odds of losing are high.

``It's essentially like a casino,'' said Joseph Cortright, an American economist. ``There are lots of bets you can lay down, and the potential can be very valuable, but for the most part, the odds that any one will pan out are extremely long.''
 

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Chee Yoke Heong
Third World Network
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Is there money in biotechnology

Biotechnology is a research-and-development intensive industry and R&D costs money. In addition to the time it takes to develop products, companies must also spend time and money testing in clinical trials and waiting for approvals from the Food and Drug Administration. The process of sending a potential new drug through testing and ultimately through FDA review can easily take three to five years. And only one of five drugs tested in human clinical trials makes it to the market. In short, the industry requires capital up front for investments that may not pay off for several years, if at all.

It today's economy, its hard to get capital on those terms. As a result, the biotech sector is facing one of its worst financial pinches ever. According to a recent survey by Merrill Lynch, about 35 percent of publicly traded biotech companies have less than a year's worth of cash left at their current operating levels. Many biotechnology stocks have plummeted in value. No biotechnology or medical technology companies have gone public in the last three quarters, according to the Daily Deal. Since late September, an average of one biotech company per week has postponed or withdrawn an IPO.

Venture capitalists and other private equity investors usually make their profits when a company either gets purchased by an industry buyer or goes public. With company valuations low and no viable IPO market, these investors see little potential opportunity for a profitable exit from investment in biotech companies.

Companies in the industry are responding to the financial squeeze in a number of ways. Biotech firms are selling off less-profitable product lines, laying off employees, and taking loans at exorbitant interest rates. Incara Pharmaceuticals sold off its liver stem cell business unit to concentrate on more traditional drugs. The Geron Corporation, which specializes in human embryonic stem cell research, laid off 30 percent of its workforce in June. Alliance Pharmaceutical Corporation, while striving to develop a chemical blood substitute, has had to pare down to 90 workers from a total of 180 at its peak. Alliance has also recently borrowed $3 million at an annual interest rate of 100 percent.

In some cases, even more extreme measures have been taken. Some companies, such as Organogenesis and Calypte Biomedical Corporation, are going the bankruptcy route. Others, such as Nexell Therapeutics, are liquidating. Variagenics and Hyseq Pharmaceuticals are merging into a new corporation in order to pool their cash resources. The new corporation is expected to be able to fund operations through 2004.

Even those who have money are tightening their belts. Many biotech firms raised huge sums of money in 2000, when investors were rushing to support the deciphering of the human genome. The industry as a whole raised $30 billion in that year. At the time, those firms spent freely. Now, even those companies in no immediate danger of running out of capital are making efforts to decrease their "bum rate," the speed in which they go through cash.

The financial crunch occurring in the biotech field will also have an impact on technological innovation. Controversial areas of study are not likely to attract investors in the current economic climate. "Stem cells has been a hot area with regard to the press, but it has not been a hot area in regard to investors," said Clayton Duncan, chief executive of Incara Pharmaceuticals. Newer areas of study, such as pharmacogenomics (the study of tailoring medicines to individual patients by testing their genes) and bioinformatics (the use of computers to analyze massive quantities of genetic data), are particularly impacted, since their potential payoffs are seen to be further down the line. In general, drug development companies are seen as better candidates for investment than companies pursuing genomics, cell therapies, or other exotic technologies.

Bio-pharming, a new field of study involving genetically modified food crops, is under fire from trade groups who are lobbying for federal regulators to restrict the industry. Bio-pharming focuses on making crops easier to grow and also exploiting the ability of plants to make medical proteins inexpensively. Of course, some biotech companies are better off than others.

Some still have money on hand from the investment boom in 2000. Other companies have successfully raised capital through secondary stock offerings, raising a combined $300 million. But those companies all have drugs close to reaching the market, which means that they are potentially close to profitability - a state that many biotech companies can't claim. BioTrove Inc. recently raised $5.25 million in a second round of venture capital financing. BioTrove's core platforms aim to improve the efficiency and productivity of drug discovery.

Unless there is some major change in the economy, the biotechnology industry will have to continue to struggle. Innovations and new developments will likely become a lower priority than revenue generating product lines. And many biotech firms that started up in the technology boom of the late 1990s will probably disappear off the map.

Sources: The Daily Deal, NewsEdge, New York Times, Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal

Future Couture

Forbes has rounded up a few pieces of fashion that we can expect in the near future. Smart clothing is destined to hit a mall near you in afew years, but for now you can admire from afar these hi-tech designs currently hidden away in labs around the country. If you thought clothes were only meant to cover your body, you are far from seeing the potential of wearable technology. Some fashion mentioned was a "spray-on-dress" that is created by spraying a chemical onto the skin to form a cloud of non-woven cloth that can be styled as desired. Another one is the "epi-skin" jewelry made from epithelial skin cells, followed by talking T-shirts and airplane dresses that change shapes with a remote control. Check out some more highbrow, hi-tech fashion at Seamless.

Scented Smart Clothes

British designer Jenny Tillotson has developed a line of multi-sensorial clothing that acts as a "Smart Second Skin". The fabric interacts with the human emotions of its wearer and releases a selection of scents based on your mood.

As much of the research in Smart Second Skin clothing includes work with pheromones—the aromatic molecules, which smell musky when we are sexually aroused and are found on our skin, the lab is working on sensors in garments that could be programmed to detect someone whose pheromone profile is of interest to you and send them a sample of your own pheromones.

I'm not sure how receptive I'm going to be to a sample of anyone's pheromones, personally, but to each their own. Regarding the picture, I'm assuming that's a conceptual mockup and not, you know, a working model.

'Smart' Clothing: A Fashion Show

'Smart' Clothing: A Fashion Show I wrote several times in this space about wearable computers and 'smart' clothing . Julia Fields wrote a very well-documented article on the subject for the Edinburgh Evening News, "Tech out the latest in fashion." Here is her introduction. In the lead-up to the millennium, scientists and retailers alike promised to revolutionise our wardrobes with "smart" clothing that would do everything from deliver a massage and improve your golf swing to change colour according to the weather. Fields spoke with Professor George Stylios from the Heriot-Watt University School of Textiles and Design. [He] announced that his team are about a year away from trialling clothing that could ultimately save lives. They are working on a vest that will monitor a patient�s heart rate, blood pressure and other vital signs and sound the alarm if it senses a problem. Tiny sensors printed on the fabric would allow doctors to monitor patients without having to keep them in hospital. The technology would transmit data to a doctor�s computer or even the central hospital system. Prof. Stylios is convinced that this kind of technology will make its debut in the medical arena. "We focused on healthcare because there is a huge demand from insurance companies, hospitals, doctors to give patients a better quality of life. "If we were a commercial company, maybe we would do a gimmicky quick fix and put an MP3 player in a jacket. But to do it properly, you will need a lot of money. People are willing to spend money to save lives. As the technology becomes more mature, we will see it going into fashion. "This technology isn�t going to go away. In 20 or 30 years, computers, telephones, and televisions will become part of our intimate clothing." Fields also lists several other projects of interest. Read her article for more information and visit the Wear Me at IEE Eurowearable '03 for more illustrations. Now, it's time to start our fashion show. Designed by Elise Co [at the MIT Media Laboratory], the Puddlejumper is a luminescent yellow-hooded jacket. Painted on its surface are several electroluminescent lamps wired to interior electronics. Water sensors are placed on the jacket�s back and left sleeve. When it rains, the lamps light up, creating a flickering pattern that mirrors the pitter-patter of rain. Here is the Puddlejumper at work (Photo credit: Wear Me). Also designed at the MIT by Megan Galbraith, Elroy is "an illuminating dress that encodes time information. The panels periodically reaarrange their illuminated pattern to express time to the wearer." "Elroy is constructed out of a Panasonic EL element, a Rabbit2000 microprocessor, polyester fabric, and one of Nik's prototype boards for specter. Here is one of the photos of Elroy ((Photo credit: Megan Galbraith, MIT Media Lab). Next time you catch a plane (if you're a woman), why not trying this airplane dress, from Hussein Chalayan? This is "an airplane dress that changes shape by remote control. The dress is made using glass fibre, a material more usually associated with the airplane industry." (Photo credit: Wear Me) Here is another dress designed by Adeline André, ScentOrgan. Your "veins and arteries act as an interactive cabling system emitting one scent. The objective is for the wearer to create their own personal 'smell bubble', by delivering a spray of magic wellness molecules to key points of the body in order to activate the smell centre." (Photo credit: Wear Me) There is also the Burton Amp jacket, from snowboarding company Burton in collaboratio with Apple, which allows riders to blast their favourite music while simultaneously racing down the slopes. Here is how looks the control panel on the jacket's sleeve (Credit: SOFTswitch Ltd.). "Philips Labs, at Redhill in Surrey, are currently designing clothes that keep you warm in the cold and cool in the heat by responding to the body�s shivering." Here are photographs of researchers at Philips, demonstrating the technology device that allows for online monitoring of body signals, when integrated in wearable garments, such as a women's bra (Photo Copyright Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.). Larger pictures are available here. And there are many other projects, like the Silversock from Carnation Footcare, which is designed to keep you feet warm and free of bad odour. Once again, read the original article for more information. Sources: Julia Fields, Edinburgh Evening News, October 8, 2003; Wear Me at IEE Eurowearable '03 website