Agbiotech goes Canadian

摘要

Strange but true: The emerging center (or should I say, centre) of agricultural biotechnology R&D is in the unlikely location of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, in western Canada. Saskatoon's rise to prominence may be attributed in part to the dive in corporate and venture capital enthusiasm for new agbiotech companies in the U.S. After a heady number of new agbiotech start-ups during the 1978-1982 period, new company formation languished. Of the 2.6 billion dollar the venture capital community invested in U. S. companies in 1994, about 973 million dollar went to life science companies. Of that total, agbiotech attracted a paltry 30 million dollar or so Commentators attribute the starvation of new U. S agbiotech enterprises variously to the atttactiveness of alternative investments in medical biotechnology, growing activist militancy, or the erratic financial performances of existing agbiotech firms.