Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

I'm Natalio Kosoi and today as part of a week of programs on startup businesses around the globe,

I'm in Argentina looking at its impressive biotech startups ecosystem.

Today there are over 120 startups in Argentina, mostly around biotech.

It's one of the leading countries in the world regarding the amount of biotech companies

here in Argentina. In a country known for inflation and brain drain, biotechnology is quietly booming.

Dozens of companies have populated a diverse landscape in the past 15 years,

trying to follow in the footsteps of established market leaders.

We are today the only company in the world that has achieved drought tolerance in two major crops,

soybean and wheat.

We probably have more patents than the rest of the Argentine companies combined.

Thanks to a combination of public and private investment, ingenuity and favorable conditions,

Argentina has developed a biotech startup scene that outpaces that of its giant naval Brazil,

establishing itself as a model for other developing countries in the region and the world. We scout for scientists and entrepreneurs,

we invest in them and we work with them as they build their startups. Who are the people behind

this push? What are the lessons they've learned?

And what is the future of this growing sector?

That's all coming up in this edition of Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

I am in Mar del Plata, a seaside town four or five hours drive south of Buenos Aires,

and there's a good reason I'm standing here by the sea.

It's because the company I'm about to visit uses shrimp shells as its main input.

A few kilometers inland inside a large building full of labs and offices, the company Univayo is developing their product

...