A Marnie Hoolahan Opinion Article
Biotechnology was never meant to be a subset of traditional pharmaceuticals. That distinction mattered at the beginning, and it still matters today for United States competitiveness and, more importantly, for patients.
Somewhere along the way, many of us, myself included, began using the comfortable shorthand of “biopharma.” It sounds modern, collaborative, and efficient. While we were smoothing our language, other countries were sharpening their strategy and treating biotechnology as the distinct strategic asset it is.
That should give us pause.
When biotech was still a little rebellious
Modern biotechnology did not begin as a therapeutic division inside a global pharmaceutical company. It started with unlikely trailblazers like Genzyme, Genentech, and Genetics Institute. These teams were building enzymes for rare diseases and recombinant proteins before most people could spell “biotechnology.”
They worked in borrowed lab space, survived on bootstrapping, pizza, beer, and stubborn belief, and took risks that made no sense on a traditional pharma balance sheet. They were not optimizing portfolios. They were inventing an industry.
That origin story matters, because it shaped how biotech thinks about risk, timelines, and value creation to this day.
Biotech versus pharma, in plain English
Pharmaceuticals, historically, meant small molecule pills. Designed by chemists. Manufactured in large, predictable stainless-steel facilities. Explained with tidy structures on a slide.
Biotechnology is different. Biologics and advanced modalities are grown in living systems. A minor change in a cell line or manufacturing process can turn a promising therapy into an expensive science experiment. Development risk is different. Manufacturing risk is different. Regulatory risk is different.
When we collapse all of this into the word “biopharma,” we blur distinctions that matter deeply to regulators, payers, investors, and patients. Convenient for branding, perhaps. Less convenient when reality shows up.
Why “biopharma” felt like progress
As biologics and biotech platforms began to outperform traditional portfolios, large pharmaceutical companies did the logical thing. They acquired biotech. Pipeline by pipeline, they bought not just assets but culture, the move fast, run one more experiment mindset that produced first in class therapies.
“Biopharma” became the peace treaty. One word that suggested alignment. One voice to policymakers. One narrative for investors.
The unintended consequence is that the very differences that make biotech powerful, fragile, and strategically important became easier to overlook.
While we merge labels, others clarify intent
China has been explicit. Biotechnology is a national strategic priority, backed by capital, infrastructure, and industrial policy. Analysts now estimate Chinese biotechnology firms represent well over a trillion dollars in collective value. Global companies have directed tens of billions of dollars into Chinese biotech partnerships and transactions.
While we tell ourselves a reassuring biopharma story, others are very clear that biotechnology is its own game, with its own rules and geopolitical importance.
Words signal priorities. Strategy follows language.
A friendly provocation for our industry
Here is the question I cannot shake. If the science, manufacturing, risk profile, and culture are different, why are we so casual about treating everything as one thing?
What might change if we talked again about biotechnology and pharmaceuticals as two distinct, interdependent pillars of health care innovation and economic security in the United States.
Maybe it is time to ask policymakers, regulators, physicians, investors, and ourselves whether we are truly comfortable letting the unique story of biotechnology disappear inside a bigger, blurrier label.
Or whether it is time to reclaim the word “biotech,” deliberately and confidently, and define the future of this industry before someone else does it for us.