There is no such thing as a 'nanotechnology industry'

On a recent trip to the US, one thing I heard over and over was references to the "nanotechnology industry". An industry usually involves producing and selling products: although I could make a couple of calls and take delivery of a few grams of buckyballs or nanotubes, no-one would ever imagine that the fabled trillion-dollar nanotechnology market would be entirely supported by fullerene producers.

The generally accepted view is that nanotechnology is an enabling technology, rather like electricity. Without electricity we wouldn't have the computer that you are reading this on, the aircraft that I am writing this on or the mobile phone in my pocket. These diverse products, although enabled by electricity, are produced by the computer, aerospace and mobile telecoms industries respectively. And nanotech isn't even a phenomenon like electricity but a general capability.

Certainly the ever-increasing number of service providers, lawyers, recruitment consultants, business developers et al. present at nanotechnology conferences seem to think that there is already a nanotech industry. But does the loose aggregation of companies using nanotechnology constitute an industry, or are nanotubes and fullerene producers the whole of the nanotechnology industry?

At the NanoBusiness Alliance Spring Conference in New York City last week, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with Steve Wilson and Uri Sagman of CSixty, and Dan Colbert of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc (CNI).

CSixty was founded by Sagman, an oncologist, and Wilson, a New York University chemistry professor. The key technology is based on the serendipitous discovery that the C60 molecule, or buckyball, acts as a protease inhibitor, which stops the HIV virus replicating. Furthermore, C60 has been suggested as a method for shielding drugs from the human immune system, which would only see the carbon in the buckyball cage, thus avoiding some of the side-effects that have prevented highly promising drugs from completing clinical trials.

CNI was founded by Richard Smalley, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1996 for the discovery of the C60 molecule. The company is commercializing a technology developed by Smalley for producing single-walled carbon nanotubes in bulk quantities. It also hopes to add further value by functionalizing the nanotubes for their end users.

Both of these companies are hailed as "stars of the nanotechnology industry", but what do they do, exactly? CSixty develops medicines, effectively, and CNI produces raw materials for a range of end users. So, in effect, we have a biotech company and a materials company, with a nanotechnology Nobel laureate on the board of both.

There is no doubt that nanotechnology will allow us to make things better, faster, cheaper and more effective, and provide a whole host of other benefits, not unlike the transition from steam to electric power. Understanding phenomena and processes at the nanoscale will have an impact on a variety of markets and create many new ones. You're pretty safe in referring to it as a revolution in the making, but anyone looking for a nanotechnology industry will have to search long and hard.