Management Issues Challenge Biotech Startups

"Emerging biotechs and pharmaceuticals companies... often struggle with the transition from being primarily research-oriented to focusing on product development and commercialization.

Many biotech companies fail to make the leap from the lab to clinical trials and beyond, winding up on the scrap heap or getting bought well before investors would have liked to see that happen. Why such companies fail has often been a real head-scratcher for those in the industry and its analysts.

A recent study of biotech management practices, however, suggests that a primary reason for such failures is an ongoing conflict, at many companies, between the collegial, informal, creativity-based management model common to scientific endeavors and one that has more discipline, structure and predictability. As part of that conflict, biotechs tend to hire managers whose expertise is in the science end without management experience, and that can be fatal..."

Management Issues Challenge Biotech Startups December 15, 2004 - News: