It is all very well to talk about competitiveness, not withstanding much of the belligerent nonsense we have recently heard and read. Every academic and industrial unit should aspire to be as competitive as possible. The best ones accomplish this, and their productivity attests to that. But to focus only on competition, as seems to be the vogue today, risks missing some very important aspects of biotech nology in 1987, and for the rest of this century.
The field continues to grow dynamically, almost explosively. The scientific breakthroughs don't seem to relevant, and given challenges such as that presented by AIDS, all humankind must be very thankful for that! Many of these advances promise markets and changes that we can hardly contemplate. Most important, no one has a monopoly on what is necessary to succeed in this field, so we see dramatic developments in many corners of the world.
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