The industry’s focus on human living organisms and the strict regulations that it imposes create unique considerations for business leaders. These aspects make the sector an ideal platform for innovation. They have produced major breakthroughs in the production of biofuels and agricultural yields and life-saving pharmaceuticals.
Biotech startups have a myriad of options when it comes to revenue generation strategies, with the majority opting for either a technology partnering or an asset creation and out-licensing approach. Technology partnering can generate more revenue and reduce financial risk, while outlicensing and asset creation strategies are able to yield much more returns. A increasing number of biotechs in the research stage use an approach that blends these two approaches.
The people who select a product-focused strategy can achieve commercial success when they are able to get their pipelines to index the right stage and attract a big pharmaceutical partner or a financier with deep pockets. This could be costly but the balance of opportunistic strategies to leverage outside resources with the right scientific decisions about homegrown projects is essential.
Alternatively, the “platform” model can provide an alternative method of earning revenue. It’s a lower-cost method than the development-oriented model but it comes with substantial risks. In this model, biotechs own and develop their platform technology before partnering with pharma companies to create a range of drug discovery projects aimed at specific diseases (i.e. disease that is x in biology, y). This is the approach that Advinus Therapeutics and a few others have adopted.