Biotechnologies harness cellular and biomolecular processes to improve our health, wellbeing, economy and environment. This field includes synthetic biology, which constructs or redesigns biological components and systems to have useful new abilities by editing their DNA.
We have updated the data in this list since we first published it in 2021. Find previous datasets in the National Library of Australia’s Trove website archive.
These technologies can be used for:
Australia’s research strengths in critical technologies underpin new economic opportunities and sovereign capabilities.
From 2022 to 2024, Australia’s research trends are consistent across critical technology fields, with biotechnologies the only field to see a decrease in publications.
Research quality and research specialisation remained the same from 2022 to 2024. We define quality as the percentage of publications in the top 10% most cited publications in the field. We define specialisation as the ratio of the share of a field in the publications that come from a given country to the share of the same field in the global total of publications.
Australian research publications for biotechnologies field, 2022–2024.
| 2022 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Publications | 6438 | 5883 |
Intellectual property (IP) rights are vital to supporting translation of critical technology research outcomes into products, businesses and new capabilities.
Biotechnologies (standard) patent applications increased steadily from 2017 to 2022.
Biotechnologies (standard) patent applications in Australia, 2017–2022.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | % growth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent applications | 2689 | 2911 | 3069 | 3157 | 3724 | 3930 | 46.15 |
Biotechnologies (standard) patent applications by Australian applicants increased from 2017 to 2022, with a slight decrease in 2019.
Biotechnologies Australian applicant (standard) patent applications in Australia, 2017–2022.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent applications | 121 | 115 | 111 | 144 | 161 | 161 |
Venture capital (VC) investment data can help assess Australia’s critical technology capability. The data acts as a real-time signal of where private investment is supporting innovation.
Investment in biotechnologies increased from about $296 million in 2023 to roughly $371 million in 2024, reflecting consistent growth.
Venture capital investment in Australian biotechnologies firms, 2014–2024.
| Year | VC investment in $millions |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 56.8 |
| 2015 | 37 |
| 2016 | 46.53 |
| 2017 | 58.12 |
| 2018 | 69.41 |
| 2019 | 96.31 |
| 2020 | 169.13 |
| 2021 | 342.49 |
| 2022 | 299.03 |
| 2023 | 295.99 |
| 2024 | 371.32 |
| Total | 1842.13 |
To remain a leader in biotechnologies, Australia needs to build strong international partnerships and trade relationships.
This will ensure we can keep developing biotechnologies to:
CSIRO collected all publication data from Web of Science systems and covers 2022 and 2024.
We sourced all patent data from IP Australia. The data covers 2017 to 2022 for standard patent applications filed in Australia. It does not include innovation patents, following a 2022 review phasing them out. We note innovation filings were on the rise during this period, which led to a spike in the years leading up to ceasing.
DISR collected all VC data in March 2025 using Pitchbook and covers 2014 to 2024.
