National Bioeconomy Blueprint

On April 26, 2012, the Obama Administration announced its commitment to strengthening bioscience research as a major driver of American innovation and economic growth. OSTP is pleased to release the National Bioeconomy Blueprint:

• Press Release (pdf)
• National Bioeconomy Blueprint (pdf)
• Executive Summary (pdf)
• Fact Sheet (pdf)

For background, on September 16, 2011, President Obama announced the development of a National Bioeconomy Blueprint detailing Administration-wide steps to harness biological research innovations to address national challenges in health, food, energy, and the environment.

In October 2011, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public comment on ideas and priorities for building the U.S. bioeconomy to inform the development of a National Bioeconomy Blueprint.

National Bioeconomy Blueprint: Public Comment

OSTP sought comment in the following areas:

Grand challenges: President Obama has identified ‘‘grand challenges’’ as an important element of his innovation strategy, such as ‘‘smart anti-cancer therapeutics that kill cancer cells and leave their normal neighbors untouched; early detection of dozens of diseases from a saliva sample; personalized medicine that enables the prescription of the right dose of the right drug for the right person; a universal vaccine for influenza that will protect against all future strains; and regenerative medicine that can end the agonizing wait for an organ transplant.’’

Research and development: R&D investments, particularly in platform technologies, can support advances in health, energy, the environment, and agriculture, and accelerate the pace of discovery in fundamental life sciences research.

Moving life sciences breakthroughs from lab to market: It is a challenge to commercialize advances in the life sciences because of the risk, expense, and need for many years of sustained investment. The Administration is interested in steps that it can take directly, but is also interested in encouraging experimentation with new private-sector-led models for funding commercialization of life sciences research.

Workforce development: Investment in education and training is essential to creating a technically-skilled 21^st century American bioeconomy workforce.

Reducing regulatory barriers to the bioeconomy: As President Obama has stated, our regulatory system must ‘‘identify and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends’’ and ‘‘protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.’’

Public-private partnerships: The Administration is interested in serving as a catalyst for public-private partnerships that build the bioeconomy and address important unmet needs in areas such as health, energy, agriculture, and environment.

This page provides an overview of the RFI and access to the 135 responses. The comments are presented chronologically below.  Clicking on an index number will open a PDF of the comment.  Additional materials provided by commenters are presented in the Supplementary Information column. A single PDF with all comments, and another with all supplementary information, are provided at the bottom of the page.

Attached File(s): 

single_pdf_bioeconomy_responses.pdf

single_pdf_bioeconomy_supplementary.pdf