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INDUSTRIAL age foundries made cast-metal parts. Information age foundries, or "fabs," produce computer chips. Now come foundries for the biotechnology age, churning out the stuff of life itself.
Such "biofabs" produce made-to-order genes, the stretches of DNA that contain the instructions for living creatures. The foundries take orders over the Internet from pharmaceutical companies or academic scientists and ship back the finished genes in as little as a week or two. The genes can be used to genetically engineer bacteria or other cells to make proteins, or in various types of biological research.
Sales of the gene-synthesis industry are estimated at only $50 million a year, but they are growing rapidly. One foundry, GeneArt, in Regensburg, Germany, has gone public. It says it expects sales this year to increase at least 60 percent, to 12.5 million euros, or about $17 million.
Fueling the surge is the productivity of DNA synthesis, which has increased 700-fold in the last decade, according to Bio Economic Research Associates, a consulting firm. The cost per base pair, the basic chemical unit of a DNA molecule...