Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T04:33:18.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - New Venture Creation in Biotechnology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2020

Lawton Robert Burns
Affiliation:
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

Biotech venture creation is a distinct investment strategy within the broader category of venture capital. It is specialized by both stage and target space and includes four elements: (1) sourcing and seed investing; (2) the role of entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs); (3) building and scaling; and (4) business model selection. Sourcing focuses on identifying innovative science that can be translated into novel therapeutic produces. Seed investing is a critical evaluative stage during which early science is pressure tested with focused resources to stringently determine which new opportunities to advance to full funding and business launch. EIRs, experienced R&D and business executives, play a central role during the seed period and often take on leadership roles in companies that move forward. Finally, matching the science to the business model, whether a broad product platform or a more focused asset-centric company, is a defining step which determines the business, financial, operating, and organizational strategies of new biotech companies. Increasingly, as the biotech industry matures, new venture creation is focused in economic clusters. These clusters are supportive ecosystems with large talent, capital, partner, supplier, and other resource pools that foster key transfers of knowledge, assets, and cooperative assets among industry participants. These clusters are seen across industries and are arguably determined by fundamental economic forces. Early examples include the concentration of textile manufacturing during the middle ages and renaissance in specific cities and regions in England and Italy, the concentration of the automobile industry in Detroit, and the concentration of high- tech companies in the Bay Area in California.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×