My most recent editorial in the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, “The impact of the global financial crisis on biotechnology development,” examines the response of governments around the world to their investments in biotechnology and healthcare innovation. It is a theme that I also raised in the Scientific American WorldVIEW. The bottom line is: despite economic hardships, given the direct health and indirect economic benefits of biotechnology research, will governments sustain, increase, or decrease their R&D budgets?