Ind_Corp_Change-2013-Hopkins-903-52.pdf (871.73 kB)
Buying big into biotech: scale, financing, and the industrial dynamics of UK biotech, 1980–2009
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 13:57 authored by Michael HopkinsMichael Hopkins, Philippa WiltonPhilippa Wilton, Paul NightingalePaul Nightingale, Charles Baden-FullerThis article explores how the UK’s biotech firms have evolved in response to their financial environment. As investors’ expectations about the potential of biotech have changed, funding options have opened up and closed down, leading firms to develop new business models and routes of technology development. After a favorable period, new constraints on stock market funding have forced UK biotech firms to compress their life cycles, constraining their ability to generate the late-stage drug candidates sought by large pharmaceutical firms. These changes are analyzed within a neo-Chandlerian framework in the context of a selection environment where rather than firms of varying inefficiencies being selected by an efficient market, we find entrepreneurs submitting themselves to an inefficient investment-selection process at the intersection of industries attempting to achieve their own scale economies. The article highlights the importance of the scale of investment at the firm and industry level, and suggests that decline in the size of the industry can have adverse consequences for investment and firm performance in this setting.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Industrial and Corporate ChangeISSN
0960-6491Publisher
Oxford University PressExternal DOI
Issue
4Volume
22Page range
903-952Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-03-18First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-03-22First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-11-10Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC