The principal object of bioprospecting and plant-extract collection is to stimulate lines of research and ultimately, the development of new products for one or more, very large, industrial or consumer markets such as pharmaceuticals or agrochemicals.

A number of factors affect the market for biological samples, in some ways limiting the potential for income generation through the exploitation of biological diversity. While biological diversity creates huge potential for discovery of new useful compounds, there are many sources of supply of raw samples. Biological samples also tend to be relatively expensive to collect and extract, and active compounds are expensive to isolate and replicate. Re-supply is often seen as a problem, and there is increasing competition from other methods of development, including rational drug design, combinatorial chemistry, combinatorial biology, and biologics.

As a result of these factors, the price of biological samples is only slightly more than the average cost of collection and profit is minimal from the samples alone. Prices for biological samples average around US$50 for 20 to 100 milligrams of extract. In order to obtain significant benefits from biological resources, source countries must develop and market a unique set of biological, cultural, and technical resources in order to create greater opportunities for negotiating adequate compensation. This compensation should include measures to promote conservation, indigenous scientific and technical knowledge and sustainable development. Most bioprospecting agreements for raw samples include up-front payments, a royalty rate and capacity-building (training and technology transfer).