A recently launched video series from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) seeks to show how biotech may be able to solve some of the most pressing challenges facing the world today.
“The Next Frontier” was produced by BBC StoryWorks, the British public service broadcaster’s commercial creative studio, marking the third such collaboration between BIO and the Beeb.
The series comprises 13 short films, spanning in length from just under five minutes to just over seven minutes. Each piece homes in on a different topic where biotech can offer potential solutions—in treating chronic conditions and rare diseases, improving global access to effective antibiotics and boosting the health of farm animals, to name a few—focusing on the innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs around the world who are driving the work.
Each of the films was sponsored by a different player in the biopharma space, including drugmakers like Chiesi Global Rare Diseases, Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, Viatris, Obsidian Therapeutics, Arcturus Therapeutics, Pacira BioSciences, JCR Pharmaceuticals, Krka and Enveda Biosciences, plus CRO Novotech and pig genetic improvement company PIC.
Rounding out the list of individual video backers are the City of Phoenix, for an exploration of the personalization of brain health, and BIO itself, taking the lead on a film spotlighting CEO John Crowley’s personal passion for biotech.
The series officially launched during the BIO International Convention in Boston last month, which included a panel discussion about the storytelling initiative, featuring leaders from BIO and the BBC, as well as from Chiesi, Enveda and the City of Phoenix.
“Revolutionary thinking from biotechnology’s scientists, innovators, and leaders is needed to solve society’s modern-day challenges,” BIO’s Crowley said in a Monday release from Chiesi about its contribution to the video series.
“This amazing series not only highlights biotech stories, it also instills in viewers one of the most powerful human emotions: hope. Hope first allows us to believe and then to act, helping to power the biotechnology revolution as it re-imagines the potential and possibilities for people and communities everywhere,” Crowley continued.
The Next Frontier is the third original film series produced by BIO and BBC StoryWorks. The duo has been working together since 2019 and, in the years since, has put out two separate series under the “Nature’s Building Blocks” heading, with more than two dozen videos in total dedicated to exploring how biotech can take cues from nature to solve major health challenges.