Australia’s Bioeconomy Moment: Why the Future Will Be Bio-Based or Bypassed

The world is building the bioeconomy. Are we?

India has committed to a $300 billion bioeconomy by 2030.

China is launching 20 pilot-scale zones to accelerate bio-industrial development.

The EU and US are investing billions in national biomanufacturing capacity.

Meanwhile in Australia?

We’ve become one of only four countries in the world to approve the sale of cultivated meat, through Vow’s recent approval of cultivated quail.

In June 2025, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) gave the green light to Vow’s cultivated Japanese quail, making Australia one of the first countries to approve a cell-cultured meat product. It’s a big moment, for Vow, for alt-protein, and for innovation.

But it’s also telling.

That approval didn’t come as part of a national strategy. It came despite the absence of one.

What is the Bioeconomy and Why Does It Matter?

The bioeconomy refers to economic activity derived from biotechnology, biological resources, and circular biological processes. In simple terms, it’s what happens when you replace fossil fuels and extraction with biology and regeneration.

From cultivated meat to bioplastics, microbe-made chemicals to carbon-negative packaging, this is not science fiction. It’s science-led transformation of every major sector: food, energy, health, materials, and waste.

It’s also a global economic race, and the stakes are high.

What Global Leaders Are Doing

• India is growing its bioeconomy from $80B to $300B by 2030, with government-led investment in biomanufacturing clusters, genome mapping, and biotech translation hubs.
• China is launching 20 national bioeconomy pilot zones, easing regulatory pathways and accelerating deployment of biotech across sectors.
• The EU has had a formal bioeconomy strategy since 2012 and is embedding it into the Green Deal and circular economy frameworks.
• The US has invested billions into biomanufacturing infrastructure and workforce through the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative and programs like BioMADE.

More broadly, over 50 countries worldwide now have dedicated bioeconomy strategies, reflecting its growing importance across innovation, industry, and sustainability agendas. These nations are aligning policy, investment, and industry to unlock the potential of bio-based innovation.

Australia is not yet one of them. And without a national bioeconomy strategy, we risk falling behind despite our recent global win.

Australia: The Ingredients Are Here. The Recipe Isn’t.

Australia already has deep roots in the bioeconomy, most visibly in medtech and health innovation. Historically, this is where national bioeconomy strategies around the world have focused: from biologics and diagnostics to drug delivery and clinical translation.

And in that space, it’s not a stretch to say “we punch well above are weight”.

But the bioeconomy is evolving. Biology is no longer just a tool for healing, it’s now the platform for how we produce food, design materials, store energy, and compute information.

To lead this next chapter, we need to expand our focus. Our strengths in medtech, built on decades of research excellence and clinical capability, should be the springboard for growth in adjacent domains.

We’re seeing it happen already. World class infrastructure is emerging through companies like Cauldron Ferm. Global collaborations are taking root, like the Tufts University cultivated meat program partnering with Australian institutions. And research hubs across the country are gearing up to deliver world-class biomanufacturing capacity.

But if our definition of “bioeconomy” remains stuck in health, we’ll miss the opportunity to lead in food, energy, materials, and sustainability, where biology can have the greatest planetary impact. Startups, like those in the food and agriculture space, are part of the same systemic shift: applying biological tools to address real-world problems.

Biology is a system just like innovation. Our national bioeconomy strategy should reflect that healthtech, foodtech, cleantech, materials science, energy sectors, and more are increasingly drawing from the same toolkit. The breakthroughs we’ve made in medtech (and continue to make) aren’t isolated successes. They’re foundational assets that can support and fuel sustainable growth across every sector. To build a regenerative, resilient future, we need to connect the dots and fund accordingly.

To be fair, we’re not starting from zero.

We have:

• CSIRO’s Synthetic Biology Roadmap, forecasting up to $30 billion in annual economic value by 2040
• ARENA’s Bioenergy Roadmap, recognising bioenergy as a critical part of Australia’s renewable future
• The Future Made in Australia Act, aimed at revitalising manufacturing, with potential to support bio-based industries
• FSANZ’s landmark cultivated meat approval, signalling that our regulators are willing to engage with novel food science

These are all positive signs.

But they remain fragmented. There’s no overarching framework to connect them. No agency with the mandate to grow the bioeconomy as a national priority. That gap is echoed in Cellular Agriculture Australia’s “From Coal to Cultivated“ report, which calls biomanufacturing “Australia’s next big opportunity” a natural evolution for regions in transition, and a scalable way to replace emissions with employment.

“Ag says we’re Biotech, Biotech says we’re Ag — and around and around we go. It’s inefficient, confusing, and ultimately discouraging for an industry with massive potential to deliver jobs, exports, and climate impact.”

As Paul Bevan , CEO of Magic Valley, says:

Australia’s Bioeconomy Is Already in Motion

While policymakers debate frameworks, founders and researchers are already building the future. Across the country, visionary startups are writing the playbook for Australia’s bioeconomy – turning microbes into materials, food waste into packaging, and cells into scalable protein platforms.

At CoLabs, we’ve seen this firsthand. Some of the most forward-thinking bioeconomy ventures in Australia have launched and/or grown from our shared biotech coworking space and PC2-certified lab infrastructure. From Great Wrap, Alt.Leather, Vow, and Magic Valley, to CytoFarms, Pythag Tech, Utilium, and AusKelp, these are the builders – not waiting for policy to catch up, but creating proof that it can.

These companies aren’t working in isolation. They’re part of a wider movement – one that stretches from algae research in Sydney to synthetic biology startups in Queensland and regenerative kelp farms in South Australia. They’re not just launching products and services. They’re shaping regulation, supply chains, and what a regenerative economy looks like in practice.

Now imagine what Australia could achieve if we had a national strategy designed to support this momentum.

A Call to Action

Australia has the science, the talent, and the early momentum. What we need now is coordination and courage.

A national bioeconomy isn’t just about innovation for innovation’s sake. It’s about creating the conditions for new industries, meaningful jobs, and regional resilience. It’s about building a future economy that grows GDP without growing emissions. And it’s about developing a coherent, whole-of-government approach to Australia’s bioeconomy strategy.

To make that future real, we need to:

• Invest in enabling infrastructure, such as pilot-scale labs, modular biomanufacturing, and regional testbeds, supporting public-private partnerships to reduce CAPEX
• Support inclusive participation, by reducing barriers for researchers, startups, and underrepresented communities
• Streamline regulation, through clear, adaptive frameworks for novel foods, biomaterials, and engineered biology
• Align policy across portfolios, including climate, industry, agriculture, health, education, and trade
• Embed place-based models, activating Australia’s diverse bioregions through localised circular systems
• Collaborate with established industries, to identify upcoming sustainability, supply chain, and materials challenges where biomanufacturing can provide scalable, low-carbon solutions
• Champion challenge-led innovation, by directing public investment and procurement toward solving real-world problems like food security, decarbonised materials, and regenerative agriculture

Those aren’t made up points.

The ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and QUT have already sketched the blueprint.

FSANZ has shown regulators are ready to engage.

Industry is doing its part, building platforms, proving models, and inviting alignment.

Now it’s time for government to meet the moment. Not with cautious observation, but with clear leadership, catalytic capital, and long-term vision or waste the efforts of innovators.

“Biomanufacturing in Australia today is an uphill battle. Energy costs are high, talent is scarce, manufacturing isn’t considered a particularly attractive career path and we have an obscene amount of regulatory burden. Without serious coordinated changes, manufacturers like Vow will be building facilities overseas.”

-George Peppou from Vow 

Let’s Not Miss the Moment

The bioeconomy is not a side project.

It is a new foundation for prosperity, one that regenerates rather than depletes.

At CoLabs, we’re building it from the bench up.

We’re backing the doers, the builders, and the visionaries.

And we’re inviting others to join us.

Biology is the technology of the 21st century.

Australia, let’s not wait for permission to lead.