When planning your career in biotechnology, or looking for ways to invest in biotech, it’s common to think only of the obvious research and development positions in actual pharmaceutical or bioproducts settings. There are those, however, who excel in method development.

The discovery, design and improvement of laboratory tools, equipment and processes are just as important, and probably lucrative, endeavors as drug design or gene characterization. Remember the growing army of CSOs who are making money off patented processes for gene cloning, large throughput screening, protein purification and a multitude of other specialized techniques. In fact, I would be willing to guess the market is somewhat akin to the music industry, where it’s not the singer, but the songwriter who makes all the money. Without the tools to perform the research, where would the scientist be?