SAN DIEGO — If Americans ever eat genetically engineered fast-growing salmon, it might be because of a Soviet biologist turned oligarch turned government minister turned fish farming entrepreneur.


That man, Kakha Bendukidze, holds the key to either extinction or survival for AquaBounty Technologies, the American company that is hoping for federal approval of a type of salmon that would be the first genetically engineered animal in the human food supply.


But 20 months since the Food and Drug Administration tentatively concluded that the fish would be safe to eat and for the environment, there has been no approval. And AquaBounty is running out of money.


Mr. Bendukidze, the former economics minister of Georgia and AquaBounty’s largest shareholder, says the company can stay afloat a while longer. But he is skeptical that genetically altered salmon will be approved in the United States in an election year, given the resistance from environmental and consumer groups.


“I understand politically that it’s easier not to approve than to approve,” Mr. Bendukidze said during a recent visit to a newly acquired laboratory in San Diego, where jars of tiny zebra fish for use in genetic engineering experiments are stacked on shelves. While many people would be annoyed by the approval, he said, “There will be no one except some scientists who will be annoyed if it is not approved.”


While opponents would cheer the company’s demise, some scientists and biotechnology executives say that if transgenic animals cannot win approval in the United States, then the nation will lose its lead in animal biotechnology as work moves elsewhere. Scientists in China, in particular, are trying to develop livestock that is resistant to mad cow and foot and mouth diseases, sheep with high yields of wool, and pigs and cows with healthy omega 3 fatty acids in their meat.


“Lack of funding, lack of regulation, you can drag it out only for so long,” said James Murray, a professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis, who has been genetically engineering goats so their milk produces human proteins that could help infants fight infections.


He is now trying to move his herd to Brazil, where he has obtained funding.


The animal biotechnology industry is anemic to begin with. AquaBounty is the only American company seriously trying to win approval for a transgenic animal for the food supply. A project at a Canadian university to develop a pig with less-polluting manure was terminated recently for lack of commercial interest.


AquaBounty’s Atlantic salmon contain a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon. They also contain a genetic switch from an eel-like creature known as the ocean pout that keeps the gene on even in cold weather — unlike normal salmon. With the year-round production of growth hormone, the AquaBounty fish grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of 30.


Some members of Congress, led by those from salmon-rich Alaska, are promoting legislation that would prohibit or delay approval. They say the AquaBounty fish might be harmful to eat or could damage wild fisheries if they were to escape into the ocean. The giant salmon, for instance, might out-compete wild salmon for food or mates.


“We’re messing with what Mother Nature has done,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska said in proposing such a measure last month. A $500,000 research grant awarded AquaBounty by the Agriculture Department last year was rescinded after a furor arose, company executives said.


The F.D.A. said in September 2010 that there was little chance the salmon could mate with wild fish because the salmon would be raised inland and sterilized, though the sterilization would not be foolproof. That same month, a committee of outside advisers, while finding various faults with the F.D.A. analysis, more or less endorsed its conclusion that the fish would be safe for consumers and the environment.


But with no word since and its cash dwindling, the company, which is based in Maynard, Mass., recently trimmed its work force to 12 people from 27, according to its chief executive, Ronald L. Stotish. “We are currently the poster child for a process that we are not sure works,” he said.