Not too long ago the COVID-19 pandemic captured the world in its vicious fists. That's when the alliance of biotech and biopharma stimulated the healthcare sector with the introduction of advanced research and delivery as well as novel curatives.

The biotech and biopharma industries are both complementary rather than competing. Living organisms like yeast, bacteria, and other tissues are harnessed for creating drugs and diagnostics in these two industries. However, biotech has its door open to the environmental and agricultural sector whereas biopharma is only confined to the healthcare sector.

Their expertise empowered vaccines enough to cure COVID-19 along with stumbling upon groundbreaking cancer-curing remedies. All in all their coalition highly elevated pharmaceutical research with their cutting-edge tools.

Now tag along as we explore the impact of biotech and biopharma in the healthcare sector!

Possible Impact of Biotech and Biopharma in Healthcare

Biotech and biopharma assist humans through thick and thin with their advanced remedies in the healthcare sector. Needless to say, their incorporation completely reformed the pharmaceutical industry! Some of their impacts on healthcare include:

Diagnostic Tools and Prosthetics

Disease diagnosis and the overall prognosis of a person has never been easier with this duo. The healthcare sector is blessed with stimulated disease prediction equipment as well as prosthetics for aiding human life.

While many people get cold feet about needles, blood culture solely boosted diagnosis. Moreover, in recent years you don't even have to wait to get your results! The overall process of blood culture blessed mankind with faster disease detection so that treatments can be conducted right away.

Other than blood culture, stool, and urine culture are extremely viable. On top of that, portable culture tests significantly benefit patients if they're unable to move from their beds.

Let's not forget the swab tests surfaced during the coronavirus outbreak. This enabled faster COVID diagnosis which saved millions.

X-rays and MRIs also boost disease prediction by taking clear snaps of a patient's internal structure. Again, surgical tools are refined for boosting successful operations be it for treating cancer or cataracts.

At-home pregnancy kits assist women in resolving false alarms with better accuracy.

Finally by adjusting prosthetic artificial hands and feet, amputees can now function like normal people. Other artificial devices include pacemakers which pump blood when the human heart starts showing abnormalities.

Gene Editing

You'd see it coming from the name but yes genes can definitely be edited! Gene editing is usually performed to modify a faulty gene. Mostly the damaged gene is regenerated by adding, removing, or even replacing particular segments of the human genome.

However, it does raise a few ethical concerns - the biological getup of humans is getting modified here. But to make it clear, only the somatic cells are touched over here while all the sex cells are kept isolated. As a result, any modification doesn't stand a chance to be transferred to the next generation. Its sole purpose is to only save human lives from uncommon or extreme diseases.

Just like normal scissors, the CRISPR-Cas9 acts as biological scissors to snip off certain locations of the defective gene. This means its opt for insertion, deletion, and substitution of modifications.

Mostly this technique can remediate genetic disorders like sickle cell anemia. Here the deformed red cells are genetically edited to form a more healthier and rounder cell.

Nowadays this miraculous procedure is enabled to treat a number of cancers by generating chimeric antigen receptors. T-cells for better target detection are extracted from the patient which are later genetically edited and reinjected!

Vaccine Development

Vaccines have been the knight in shining armor ever since the coronavirus outbreak. However, it has always been our savior from the origin of polio. Even though it's always a heated conversion as there are a lot of anti-vax. But Pfizer and Moderna vaccines saved millions during the pandemic.

Usually, vaccines consist of a weakened or mostly dead version of a microbe which serves its therapeutic purposes. Whenever it's injected inside the body, an immune response is triggered. This highly strengthens our immune system to fight off any foreign viruses invading our bodies.

But scientists did develop a new generation of vaccines that refrains from harnessing microbes. Instead, they use messenger RNA for generating proteins. These mRNA vaccines can't alter your actual DNA which cuts down most ethical concerns.

Now these mRNA implants a viral protein when injected inside. The immune system gets aware and produces loads of antibodies to tarnish the viral protein which they recognize as the invader. Once the antibodies are produced they remain inside till an actual viral disease occurs. As a result, these new vaccines are less susceptible to getting resistant so they can be used for prolonged periods.

Bioprinting

Similar to how 3D printing produces a prototype based on a particular design, bioprinting 3D prints cells, tissues, or even organs! This innovative approach highly facilitated drug development as you'll now have artificial organs to test them on before sending them over to the market.

The initial step is where the patients have to undergo an MRI scan to get a copy of their internal whereabouts. After that, based on the blueprint, bioprinting is proceeded. So if a patient has a hole in his heart, bioprinting will create tissues according to his precise measurement. When inserted inside, it will multiply to completely heal the organ!

Human cells are mixed with bioinks to create an emulsion for printing the tissues in jetting-based bioprinting. Extrusion-based bioprinting creates tissues by using a threadlike material consisting of cells. Finally, integrated bioprinting uses hydrogels and aggregates consisting of cells to regenerate tissues.

These are printed layer by layer with the assistance of these cells and inks. Once printed, the tissues often multiply which is when they are kept in incubators for thorough investigation. So this approach can definitely reform wound healing and organ transplantation in the future!

Xenotransplantation

Another approach to healing faulty organs can be aided by xenotransplantation. But instead of using human cells, animal cells are used for treating mankind! This can once again reform organ transplantation without the requirement of actual human organ donation.

Pigs are widely available and their kidneys have almost the same configuration of human kidneys. This is the sole reason why pigs are mainly chosen for this concept. The pig kidneys are further refined using gene editing tools for better organ matching.

So the concept is very easy - pig kidneys are transplanted into humans without the hassle of blood or organ matching. Moreover, pigs have a lower chance of spreading diseases which is why they're always the better option.

And yet again this approach raises ethical concerns. However, further study is required to enable the availability of this treatment. A brain-dead person implanted with pig kidneys is said to function for at least two days!

Other than kidneys, heart and liver transplants have shown immense potential. So this approach can also treat neurodegenerative disorders.

Regenerative Medicines

Whenever you scrape your knee, the skin repairs itself with little to no concern. Regenerative medicines follow the same concept except for internal body parts. So whenever you have to deal with a chronic disease, these regenerative ways instruct organs to repair on their own.

The main motive of this approach is to reboot tissues impaired from accidents, diseases, or age-related conditions without the hassle of going under the knife. Blood cells, skin cells, and bones can also regenerate by themselves!

Stem cell research contributes to this approach where cells are artificially grown in labs which are later maneuvered to replace damaged cells. So for heart conditions, these lab-grown stem cells can transplant deformed heart tissues.

Now for a complete organ transplant, regenerative techniques also come in handy. It's usually a challenge to find appropriate organ donors on time. Hence, bioprinting can create artificial tissues that can be inserted at the deformed bits for it to repair itself. Other cell therapies include injecting adult stem cells from your bone marrow to reconstruct deformed tissues for yourself.

However, being under research it's usually used as testing subjects in labs. But, regenerative medicine reverses diabetes, brain death, and even cancer.

Bottom Line

Now biotech and biopharma are constantly evolving and steadily unleashing their truest potential. Even though they're confined into numerous controversies in terms of ethics, the alliance of these sectors completely reforms human life. So if you've tagged along, you'll now know the impact of biotech and biopharma in healthcare.

In short, biotech and biopharma are our saviors in dire conditions. They've blessed us with diagnostic tools for stimulating disease prediction. Defective genes can be regenerated using gene editing. Vaccine development assisted us in tackling COVID-19. Our organs can be healed using artificially 3D printed tissues in case of bioprinting whereas for xenotransplantation animal cells are used. But for automatically regenerating internal tissues, regenerative medicines revolutionized the field!Surely, these fields of modern-day technology relentlessly shape the healthcare sector.