The large majority of biopharmaceutical products are pharmaceuticals that are derived from life forms. Small molecule drugs are not typically regarded as biopharmaceutical in nature by the industry. However members of the press and the business and financial community often extend the definition to include pharmaceuticals not created through biotechnology. That is, the term has become an oft-used buzzword for a variety of different companies producing new, high-tech pharmaceutical products.

"Biotechnology has contributed towards the exploitation of biological organisms or biological processes through modern techniques, which could be profitably used in medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and environmental cloning."

Biotechnology is a popular term for the generic technology of the 21st century. Although it has been utilized for centuries in traditional production processes, modern biotechnology is only 50 years old and in the last decades it has been witnessing tremendous developments. Bioengineering is the science upon which all Biotechnological applications are based. With the development of new approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems.