By 2010, more than 40,000 jobs in the Republic will have a biotechnology component and there will be some 6,200 jobs in Irish-owned biotech companies, according to Dr Jim Ryan of BioResearch Ireland.

In an overview of 1999, Dr Ryan nonetheless stressed the need for "continued focus from the Government" on the biotech sector. The director of the national agency for commercialising biotechnology need not have worried.

The Cabinet has since finalised funding of £560 million (#711 million) for the Technology Foresight initiative which envisages specialisation in information and communication technology, and biotechnology. Moreover, the Government is committed to investing #2.5 billion in research, technology development and innovation over the next seven years. The steady growth of the Irish biotech sector continued in 1999 with some significant start-ups, most of which were based on technologies and services developed within BRI's university partners. Perhaps most significant was the arrival of HiberGen based at UCC, which uses rapid genetic screening technology developed on the campus.

It is the first Irish genomics company and will concentrate on the "disease genes" within the Irish population, which should yield new treatments.

BioObservationsystems was developed at the BRI campus at UCD and construction has been completed at Archport, BRI's largest spin-off to date, providing contract manufacturing facilities for production of human grade proteins. BRI also concluded an exclusive licensing and research agreement with Inhibitex, a US biopharmaceutical company, to prevent and treat antibiotic resistant infections (a growing public health problem), and with Bantry Bay Mussels, shellfish exporters, to evaluate BRI's own system for detecting shellfish toxins.