Enzyme technology in Brazil: trade balance and research community

Abstract

Despite Brazil’s large numbers and its position as one of the world’s ten largest economies, its exports are mainly composed of non-industrial or low-technological goods. It results in a trade deficit and technological dependence that affects several sectors, including biotechnology. The present study aims at analyzing the Brazilian trade balance (from 1996 to 2013) of enzyme-related goods and correlating such data with the scientific community, number of scientific publications and filings of patent applications related to four technological areas that commonly use lipases, the most important enzyme studied in Brazil. Brazil seems to have a sufficient, but not saturated, technical staff working in enzyme-correlated areas, while the trade balance is deteriorating over the years. The major problem seems to be that the increase in the number of scientists is not accompanied by a proportional increase in effective development policies. These conclusions are corroborated by the number of scientific publications and patent documents related to the industrial use of lipases, one of the most important enzyme group: while Brazil has an important contribution in publishing scientific documents regarding the industrial use of lipases, its contribution in filing patent applications is only marginal.