Pharmaceuticals
Numerous pharmaceuticals on the market today are developed through modern biotechnology. In fact, almost all bio-therapeutic agents in clinical use today are developed through modern biotechnology. An example here is the production of human insulin from genetically modified microorganisms. According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO), diabetes is one of the top five causes of death in Swaziland.
Traditionally, insulin used to treat diabetics was extracted from pig and beef carcasses. However, use of this sometimes resulted in serious immune responses due to some slight but significant differences between human and porcine or bovine insulin. The gene for human insulin has been inserted into microorganisms to enable them to produce large amounts of human insulin enabling millions of diabetics around the world to manage their condition.