Linda Bedenik, Senior Policy and Communications Manager at the British Bioindustry Association (BIA), explores the topic of biosolutions and how they are helping to drive a more sustainable future in the UK and beyond.
The climate crisis requires urgent and comprehensive mobilization across all sectors of the global economy. While conversations often center on decarbonization efforts in energy and transportation, the most powerful and scalable solutions may lie in an unexpected realm: biology itself.
We are currently in an era of truly disruptive innovation. There, the ability to derive insights from AI, precisely edit genomes, and industrialize biological processes is creating a powerful new movement. These are biosolutions (previously known as deep biotechnologies). They are led by innovative companies that leverage modern industrial biotechnology and are focused on addressing humanity’s greatest challenges, from pollution and waste to the climate crisis.
What are biosolutions and what is the difference between them?
Biosolutions are powered by engineered biology, the deliberate manipulation of the genetic code powered by simultaneous advances in AI, genomics, and advanced automation. These provide a powerful pathway to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, resilient and competitive future inspired by nature.
What sets BioSolutions apart is its scale, purpose and strong delivery capabilities.
Beyond health
For decades, British biotech success has centered on healthcare. Biosolutions companies are taking the same powerful toolkit and applying it to disrupt traditional industries rooted in unsustainable practices, including agriculture, fashion, fuel, and plastic packaging.
Fundamental tools for net zero
Biosolutions are the basis of “deep technology” and “climate technology”. These innovations are essential to the transition from fossil fuel dependence to a sustainable bioeconomy. By enhancing the processes of nature itself, we can create the building blocks of modern life, reduce our impact on the environment, and put the world on the path to sustainable economic growth. The UK government itself predicts that engineering biology could boost real GDP by 1.55% by 2035.
Main application areas of biosolutions
The universal nature of the genetic code means engineering biology can be applied across the economy, driving a “biological revolution” that McKinsey estimates could have a direct global impact of $2-4 trillion a year by 2030-40. BIA has identified four key application areas where biosolutions are leading change.
Innovative food: reinventing agriculture
Innovative biosolutions have the potential to transform food systems. Companies are revolutionizing pesticides, using precision breeding to develop resilient crops, and leveraging cellular agriculture and precision fermentation to create sustainable proteins.
For example, cultured meat and precision-fermented ingredients can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 92% and land use by up to 95% compared to industrial-scale agriculture.
Bio-based chemicals and materials
More than 90% of the carbon in the world’s chemical production comes from fossil fuels. Biosolutions offer industries that rely on petrochemical feedstocks the opportunity to decouple the production of goods such as textiles, packaging and cosmetics from petrochemicals and intensive agriculture.
Engineering microorganisms can produce sustainable bio-based ‘drop-in’ alternatives to plastics (such as bioplastics) and active ingredients, revolutionizing industries such as fashion and packaging.
Initiatives against environmental pollution
BioSolutions provides biologically-based solutions that dispel the legacy of petrochemical-dependent industries. For example, designing enzymes that quickly break down hard-to-recycle materials such as plastics and synthetic fibers (microplastics) into reusable monomers. Alternatively, new adsorbent materials may be developed to selectively remove harmful pollutants such as PFAS (“forever chemicals”) from contaminated water sources.
Engineering the next generation of biofuels
To reach net-zero targets, high-emission sectors such as transport and shipping will need to decarbonise. Biofuels derived from biomass and artificial organisms play an important role.
Engineering biology is used to enhance the ability of natural organisms, such as microalgae, to absorb carbon efficiently and produce high-energy, sustainable oils for biofuels, providing a powerful bio-based alternative to fossil fuels.
Major projects
British innovators are charting the course for a biological revolution. BIA supports a rapidly growing community of biosolutions companies, including:
Resurrect Bio (new food/agriculture): This company uses an integrated platform that includes an AI tool called FloraFold® to “resurrect” natural immunity in crops. Rapid identification of disease resistance traits can reduce reliance on petrochemical-dependent pesticides that pollute the environment, leading to higher yields and more resilient crops. Twig (Bio-Based Chemicals/Materials): Twig utilizes a proprietary two-part technology, BioDrive (AI design) and GrowBot (wet lab), to engineer microorganisms that produce sustainable feedstocks from waste materials, such as waste sugar from food processing. This provides the cosmetics industry with a cost-competitive and stable supply chain alternative. Epoch Biodesign (Plastic Recycling/Circular Economy): This pioneer in artificial biology is developing innovative solutions to plastic waste. They are using AI-powered enzyme engineering to create custom nanoscale biomachines that can depolymerize complex plastic waste into high-value circular chemicals and recycled plastics. This biorecycling process provides a truly circular, low-energy, non-toxic route to managing waste that is currently disposed of in landfills or incineration. Constructive Bio (Enabling Technology): Operating at the cutting edge of science, Constructive Bio rewrites entire genomes to build the biomolecules of the future. By reprogramming “free” codons, new types of natural building blocks can be incorporated into proteins, enabling the creation of new therapeutics and fully programmable biomaterials that were previously impossible to produce at scale.
Regulatory and economic hurdles
Despite the great promise of biosolutions, companies often struggle to reach the scale needed for mainstream use. The BIA has identified three key interconnected hurdles – regulatory, infrastructure and finance – that require a co-ordinated policy response to unlock a sustainable bioeconomy for the UK.
Overcoming regulatory friction
The speed and novelty of biosolutions often exceed traditional regulatory frameworks. This lack of stability, predictability, and a forward-looking environment is a major deterrent to long-term private investment. The central challenge is simple. Regulators need to adapt to new technologies and businesses need clear and transparent routes to market.
Fortunately, the UK is making positive progress. Key legislative and institutional measures are paving the way, including the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and the establishment of the Engineering Biology Regulatory Authority Network (EBRN) and the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO). In particular, RIO is actively accelerating access to new technologies, as evidenced by its support of initiatives such as the FSA’s regulatory sandbox for cell culture products. The BIA works actively with these bodies to fully develop the RIO’s mandate and advocates for globally competitive regulation that secures the UK’s innovation advantage.
Securing scale-up infrastructure
Accessing and building the facilities needed to scale up new bioproducts is extremely costly and time-consuming, creating large infrastructure gaps. This critical lack of available and affordable scale-up infrastructure prevents companies from successfully transitioning from the pilot stage to commercial production. This has forced many UK companies to carry out valuable research and development at home and to move economically valuable scale-up and manufacturing activities overseas.
To combat this, the UK Government has allocated £184m of public funding to support large-scale biosolutions in the UK. This funding is essential not only to increase the availability and accessibility of existing infrastructure, but also to ensure it is affordable to UK biosolution innovators. Our goal is clear. Our goal is to meet the demands of growing small and medium-sized businesses and ensure that the economic value created by biosolutions remains in the UK.
enable long-term financing
Competition with the low costs of established traditional industries such as petrochemicals is a constant battle. The UK biosolutions sector has shown significant growth, raising £1.09bn between 2018 and 2024, but funding will need to be consistently significant to drive important late-stage scale-up rounds. The challenge, especially for these late-stage ventures, is to ensure easy access to capital as they grow and continued public support to “de-risk” investments and lower the green premium.
BIA is leading advocacy efforts to address this issue. Through Innovate UK, we are driving strong public funding for biosolutions and working to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises benefit from research-intensive R&D tax breaks. Additionally, we propose to establish a team within British Patient Capital (BPC) focused on engineering biology. This is a move to strategically funnel more institutional capital into the space and complete the funding pipeline.
conclusion
The potential for biosolutions is enormous, supporting as many as 10 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. As the 2024 House of Lords Inquiry into Engineering Biology warned, the UK is at risk of missing out on the chance to become a world leader. The window of opportunity to fully enjoy these benefits is small and closing.
BIA is committed to serving as a catalyst. By supporting the growing biosolutions community, we promote a supportive policy environment, remove regulatory disincentives, and improve access to finance and infrastructure. This will help accelerate the UK’s biosolutions sector and enable a bio-revolution that will ultimately secure a sustainable, resilient and prosperous future.
Read the full report and join the BioSolutions community
We encourage you to read the full BIA Deep Biotech report for a deeper dive into specific policy recommendations, investment trends, and case studies that will drive the future of a sustainable bioeconomy. For the latest financial data and analysis, check out our blog on investing in this sector. We also invite innovative companies, investors, and policymakers to join the rapidly growing BIA BioSolutions community and help shape the next chapter of this revolution.
BioSolutions UK – BIA’s pioneering new conference where engineering, biology and innovation come together to help businesses grow, scale and succeed – will be held at Glaziers Hall, London on 21 April 2026. Click here for more information.
This article will also be published in the quarterly magazine issue 24.
Source link
