Singapore, April 4, 2008: Twenty-one percent of biotechnology organizations are active in the Auckland region, but biotechnology activity is spread evenly across the remainder of the country, according to the Statistics New Zealand.
These figures are from the Biotechnology Survey 2007, which measures the use of biotechnologies and their uptake by organizations, and includes regional figures for the first time in the biennial survey's history.
Of the biotechnology techniques used by New Zealand organizations in 2007, 67 percent were at the research and development (R&D) stage. The predominant technique used in the R&D stage was DNA sequencing/synthesis/amplification.
The most common constraint to biotechnology R&D was lack of access to capital, reported by 50 percent of organizations active in biotechnology.
In the two years to June 2007, 225 biotechnology-related patents were granted to New Zealand organizations. Of these patents, the private sector was responsible for the most patents (108), followed by the public sector (75), and the higher education sector (48).
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