By Jim Mellon and Al ChalabiPublished by Wiley
Europe is cracking up. China is slowing down. America and Britain are dependent on near-zero interest rates and copious amounts of money printing. The global economy is in a mess.
So when investors and entrepreneurs Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi claim that "our world stands on the brink of the greatest era of discovery and advance ever seen", you could be forgiven for being sceptical. Yet read their latest book on how the biotech industry is set to transform both medicine and society, and you might just be convinced.
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As the authors note, much of the basic theory behind the field of biotechnology has existed since the 19th century. However, thanks to the pace of change produced by Moore's Law (roughly speaking, the tendency for computer processing power to double every two years), enough computing power now exists to put theory into practice, they argue.
For example, the price of mapping an individual's genome has tumbled in the past decade. Indeed, we may be approaching something close to futurist Ray Kurzweil's 'singularity', where technology becomes so advanced that it sets off a self-sustaining cycle of discovery. This will hugely improve the quality of human life and create massive opportunities for canny investors.
The book is wide-ranging, and can be read in discrete chunks. If you want to learn about the most interesting discoveries you can flick to chapters four and five. If you just want to know which shares to buy, skip to the last chapter, which splits the suggested stocks into three portfolios, based on risk. The only downside to this approach is that the focus jumps from topic to topic, with a chapter on obesity following one on robotics, for example.
While neither author has a background in medicine, they generally provide enough detail to inform without overwhelming their audience (although even they admit that their explanation of DNA's workings, in chapter two, may be heavy going for the casual reader). Perhaps more importantly, their track record means their views on where to invest in this high-risk industry are certainly worth seeking out.
Cracking the Code: Understand and Profit from the Biotech Revolution That Will Transform Our Lives and Generate Fortunes, by Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi, published by Wiley, £16.99.
