Biotech's Challenge In Africa

Filed in archive Other Biotechnology News on September 27, 2005

Nature's Sept. 27 issue of Drug Discoveryruns an article discussing the prospects of establishing the biotech industry in Africa.

"It's going to be a slow process building biotech in Africa," says Lawrence Kent, director of international programs at the not-for-profit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Kent says it's been difficult to even convince African governments to accept Western biotech volunteers and Western money for biotech programs. "[Government officials] are still sort of trying to figure out what they should do and should not be doing with biotech. At the same time, they are putting together a regulatory system" so that they're at least prepared should the day arrive when biotech really does take root in Africa.

Read the rest of the article here.