Demand for access to genetic resources has changed significantly in recent years as a result of rapid and on-going scientific and technological advances. These advances have transformed our understanding of the natural world and our ability to study it. Earlier difficulties associated with screening natural product samples, isolating active compounds, and scaling up raw material supply are falling away, and natural products research is quicker, cheaper, and easier than even five years ago. The material that researchers and companies access has also changed, with the vast majority of research now done on microorganisms, including those found in the sea. In all cases, it is the genetic material found within organisms, rather than the organisms, themselves, that is of greatest interest to researchers. The Timing of the Nagoya Protocol to adapt to these new realities, and incorporate lessons learned from the last 20 years of access and benefit- sharing policy implementation under the Convention on Biological Diversity, could not be better.