Patent Law

Book Review Monday: Biotechnology Business Development

By Stephen Albainy-Jenei

The book “Best Practices in Biotechnology Business Development” is a guidebook for those seeking to understand how to practice the business of biotechnology in order to become empowered to better manage their operations.

This is not a typical page 1 to end (page 186) storyline with a nice plot and happy ending.  Instead, this is a series of 11 missives covering a variety of topics having to do with the business of biotech.  From how to communicate with investors to managing intellectual property to getting a grip on cash flow, the various segments guide you through individual useful segments.

You can get your money’s worth just in the section on the Top Five Mistakes by Entrepreneurs by Carlos Velez of the Erie Hudson Group.  In my experience, these are right on as the type of hard news struggling start-ups need to hear.  For example:

Mistake #2 - Taking the Wrong First Step

What this means is that newly set forth entrepreneurs often think that the first step is to run out and get some money (via VCs, angels, etc.).  In fact, these companies struggle precisely because they are unwilling to take the necessary personal risk and invest themselves.  They want others to take on all the risk.

But, who wants to invest in a company if the founders/management are not personally (and severely) at risk themselves?  Investors want to know that those involved are going to be sufficiently motivated to move quickly, decisively and (more importantly) prudently.  Nothing propels one to get things right like fear of total devastation.

I see a lot of entrepreneurs start companies but fail to quit their day jobs.  These companies with great promise eventually founder after years of fits and starts because they are not sufficiently invested.  More often than not, these are people with secure jobs (like tenured faculty members) who like living in a nice environment free from risk and it’s just too difficult to leave that behind for the wild ride of a business start-up.

Best Practices in Biotechnology Business Development is edited by Yali Friedman, author of Building Biotechnology a coursebook for biotechnology.  His other projects include the Biotech Blog and Drug Patent Watch.

You can get the book here: Best Practices in Biotechnology Business Development: Valuation, Licensing, Cash Flow, Pharmacoeconomics, Market Selection, Communication, and Intellectual Property

Full post as published by Patent Baristas on June 30, 2008 (boomark / email).