New Horizons in Biotech Innovation: The Future of Synthetic Biology and Personalized Medicine in 2025

As of 2025, the biotech industry is experiencing a fundamental paradigm shift through the convergence of Synthetic Biology and AI-based drug development. The global biotech market is projected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, reflecting an annual growth rate of 15.8% compared to 2020. Notably, the synthetic biology sector alone is forming a $42 billion market and is expected to expand at an annual growth rate of 23.7% by 2030, according to the latest report by McKinsey & Company. The key drivers of this growth are the accelerated innovation in biotechnology post-COVID-19 pandemic, massive government investments in the bio sector, and new possibilities created by the convergence of AI and biotechnology.

One of the most notable companies in the field of synthetic biology is California-based Ginkgo Bioworks. As of the third quarter of 2025, the company has a market capitalization of $4.5 billion and is building a customized production platform using microorganisms under the vision of “programming biology.” Ginkgo’s core technology combines gene editing with automated laboratory systems to design and produce microorganisms with desired traits in large quantities. During the first half of 2025, the company entered into partnerships worth a total of $800 million with global pharmaceutical companies such as Moderna, Roche, and Bayer, showing innovative results, particularly in personalized vaccine development. Meanwhile, Denmark’s Novozymes, which was competing with Boston-based Zymergen (now acquired by Ginkgo), recorded a 30% increase in sales in the enzyme production sector in 2025, showing strength in the industrial bio-solutions market.

In the AI-based drug discovery field, AlphaFold3, developed by DeepMind in London, UK, became commercialized in 2025, raising the accuracy of protein structure prediction to 95.2%. This achievement reduces the time and cost by 90% and 85%, respectively, compared to traditional X-ray crystallography methods. California’s Atomwise has utilized AlphaFold3 data to discover 127 new drug candidates by 2025, with 23 of them entering phase 1 clinical trials. The company is particularly noted for identifying promising compounds for Alzheimer’s disease treatment at a speed 3.2 times faster than traditional methods. Competitor Recursion Pharmaceuticals, based in Massachusetts, recorded a market capitalization of $3.2 billion as of the second quarter of 2025, attempting differentiation with its proprietary drug discovery platform combining computer vision and machine learning.

Rapid Growth and Technological Innovation in the Personalized Medicine Market

The precision medicine sector has grown to a scale of $280 billion as of 2025, marking a 186% increase compared to five years ago. The core technologies driving this growth are advancements in next-generation sequencing (NGS), liquid biopsy, and CAR-T cell therapy. The liquid biopsy market alone forms a $7.8 billion market in 2025, playing a game-changing role in early cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring. California-based Guardant Health is a leader in this field, recording an annual revenue of $820 million as of the third quarter of 2025, a 42% growth compared to the same period last year. The company’s Guardant360 platform can detect 74 cancer-related gene mutations from blood samples alone, with a detection accuracy of 97.3%.

In the CAR-T cell therapy field, Novartis’s Kymriah and Gilead Sciences’ Yescarta are leading the market. As of 2025, the global CAR-T therapy market is valued at $12.4 billion, growing approximately fourfold compared to 2020. With active development of CAR-T therapies for solid tumors, the treatment scope is expanding beyond the traditional focus on blood cancers. California’s Juno Therapeutics (now part of Bristol Myers Squibb) recorded a 65% objective response rate in CAR-T clinical trials for solid tumors in the first half of 2025, attracting industry attention. In Korea, Celltrion’s CAR-T therapy received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in February 2025, proving its competitiveness in the Asian market. Celltrion’s CAR-T therapy is priced 40% lower than existing foreign products, enhancing accessibility, with an annual sales target of 15 billion won.

Advancements in the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 are also accelerating innovation in personalized medicine. California’s Editas Medicine and Massachusetts’s CRISPR Therapeutics are conducting 28 and 34 clinical trials, respectively, as of 2025, showing groundbreaking results, particularly in the treatment of genetic disorders and cancer. CRISPR Therapeutics’ CTX001 therapy has recorded a 95% success rate in treating sickle cell disease patients, with commercialization expected in the second half of 2025. The anticipated market price for this therapy is $2.2 million per patient, and despite the high entry barrier, annual sales are projected to reach $1.5 billion. Competitor Editas Medicine is attempting differentiation with CRISPR technology specialized in ophthalmic disease treatment, announcing positive phase 2 clinical trial results in the development of a therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis.

The Rise of the Asian Market and Changes in the Global Competitive Landscape

The Asian biotech market accounts for 28% of the global market as of 2025, significantly growing from 19% in 2020. Particularly, China is emerging as a global biotech powerhouse, investing $120 billion in the bio sector by 2025 under the government’s “Five-Year Plan for Bioeconomic Development.” Shanghai-based BeiGene recorded a market capitalization of $18 billion as of the third quarter of 2025, solidifying its position in the global oncology market. The company’s BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib recorded $1.2 billion in sales in the first half of 2025 after FDA approval in the US, receiving positive market feedback for having 30% fewer side effects compared to existing competing drugs.

Korea’s biotech industry is also showing remarkable growth as of 2025. According to the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization, the domestic bio industry is projected to surpass 23 trillion won in 2025, an 18.5% increase compared to the previous year. Samsung Biologics is currently the world’s largest CMO (Contract Manufacturing Organization) company, with an annual production capacity of 620,000 liters, acting as a production partner for global pharmaceutical companies. Particularly in the mRNA vaccine production field, the company recorded sales of 1.2 trillion won in the first half of 2025 through a long-term partnership with Moderna. Celltrion Healthcare holds a 12.3% global market share in the biosimilar sector, showing continuous growth in the European and US markets. As of the third quarter of 2025, Celltrion’s Truxima (rituximab biosimilar) has been approved in 97 countries worldwide, achieving annual sales of 850 billion won.

Japanese biotech companies are also attempting differentiation in the market with unique approaches. Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceutical ranks third globally in the rare disease treatment sector as of 2025, holding over 50% market share in the hemophilia treatment market. The company’s hemophilia A treatment Adynovi recorded $3.5 billion in sales in the first half of 2025, significantly improving patient convenience by halving the administration frequency compared to existing treatments. Meanwhile, CiRA (Center for iPS Cell Research and Application), a startup from Kyoto University, possesses unique technological capabilities in the iPS cell-based regenerative medicine field, conducting clinical trials for Parkinson’s disease and macular degeneration treatment as of 2025.

Examining global biotech investment trends, venture capital and private equity investments in the biotech sector reached $42 billion in the first half of 2025 alone. This figure represents a 23% increase compared to the same period last year, with investments particularly concentrated in AI-based drug development and cell therapy fields. California’s Flagship Pioneering has independently established a $3.8 billion biotech-exclusive fund in 2025, announcing plans to invest 60% of it in synthetic biology and AI-based platform companies. In Europe, Germany’s BioNTech announced a €2.5 billion investment in developing cancer treatments using mRNA technology, officially expanding its business into the oncology sector following the success of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Changes in the regulatory environment are also significantly impacting the development of the biotech industry. The US FDA announced the “AI-based Drug Development Guidelines” in 2025, attempting to standardize the new drug development process using AI. According to these guidelines, if transparency and verifiability of AI algorithms are secured, fast-track approval that can shorten clinical trial periods by up to 30% is possible. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also announced the “Simplification of Approval Procedures for Personalized Therapies” in March 2025, easing approval criteria for orphan drugs targeting small patient groups. These improvements in the regulatory environment are lowering market entry barriers for biotech startups and accelerating the commercialization of innovative therapies.

Looking towards the second half of 2025, the major trends in the biotech industry are summarized as the spread of platform-based business models and the establishment of a data-driven medical ecosystem. Particularly, the integration and utilization of patient data to generate real-world evidence is emerging as a key to creating new value. These changes are blurring the boundaries between traditional pharmaceutical companies and biotech startups, creating new forms of collaboration and competitive dynamics. Over the next five years, the biotech industry is expected to lead a fundamental change in the global healthcare paradigm as technological innovation and market expansion accelerate simultaneously.

Investors and industry experts anticipate the fourth quarter of 2025 and early 2026 as another turning point for the biotech industry. The first major success case of AI-based drug development is particularly expected to emerge, which is analyzed to have a significant impact on the valuation and investment patterns of the entire industry. Simultaneously, Asian markets, especially Korean and Chinese biotech companies, are expected to play a more significant role on the global stage, providing new diversity and competitiveness to the Western-centric biotech ecosystem.