Appendix 1: The Chances of Finding a "Valuable Commercial Application"with Biological Material
The statistical chance of finding a valuable commercial application from bioprospecting activities is relatively low. Quantifying "relatively low" varies depending on how "a valuable commercial application" is defined. A number of figures can be found in the scientific literature:
- On average, finding a single potentially commercially valuable medicinal species requires bioprospectors to examine at least 10,000 plants. See J. L. Trotti, "Compensation Versus Colonization: A Common Heritage Approach to the Use of Indigenous Medicine in Developing Western Pharmaceuticals", Food Drug L.J. 2001, 56, 367, 367.
- The probabilities of developing a successful product lie between 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 10,000 according to C. Richerzhagen, K. Holm-Mueller, "The effectiveness of access and benefit sharing in Costa Rica: Implications for national and international regimes", Ecological Economics, 2005, 53, 445–460.
- Another report states that "the odds of finding a new drug from botanical samples are still very low (from 1:80,000 to 1:250,000 plant samples)". See J. M. Feinsilver and I. H. Chapela, ‘Will Biodiversity Prospecting for Pharmaceuticals Strike "Green Gold"?', Diversity, 1996, 12(2), 20–21.
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