Indeed, there's much more going on in biological systems than just merely a replication. There's both anabolic and catabolic reactions, and compartmentalization allowing for these reactions in the first place. There are different receptors acting as an input signals that influence the aforementioned reactions. Viruses lack all of that, including arguably even replication, which they can't do by their own. There's not even any spectrum here - viruses don't have any biochemistry, and even the simplest bacteria or archea exhibit all of the processes mentioned.