Biosurfactants or microbial surfactants are surface-active biomolecules that are produced by a variety of microorganisms. Biosurfactants have gained importance in the fields of enhanced oil recovery, environmental bioremediation, food processing and pharmaceuticals owing to their unique properties such as higher biodegradability and lower toxicity. Currently, biosurfactants are not widely utilized in the petroleum industry due to high production costs associated with use of expensive substrates and inefficient product recovery methods. The economics of biosurfactant production could be significantly impacted through use of media optimization and application of inexpensive carbon substrates such as agricultural process residuals. Utilization of biosurfactants produced from agricultural residuals may result in an economic advantage for surfactant production and technology application, and convert a substantial agricultural waste stream to a value added product. This article describes some practical approaches that have been adopted to make the biosurfactant production process economically attractive. These include the use of cheaper raw materials and different microorganisms produce different biosurfactants. Here, we discuss the role and applications of biosurfactants focusing mainly on medicinal and therapeutic perspectives. With these specialized and cost-effective applications in biomedicine, we can look forward to biosurfactants as the molecules of the future.