In The Business of Bioscience, What goes into making a Biotechnology Product you will be introduced to key aspects of the biotech and product development process. This includes: the characteristics of a biotech entrepreneur, legally establishing your company, raising all forms of capital, selecting development milestones, dealing with personnel issues, the significance and impact of a business model, market strategies and their impact on raising money, regulatory compliance issues, and why you must manage differently at different organizational life stages. Each chapter provides helpful background information yet quickly moves to in-depth discussions of these subjects so that those with more experience in these areas will also benefit. Knowledge is essential for success, and most biotech entrepreneurs are very knowledgeable; however, a distinguishing difference between a good biotech leader and a great biotech leader is having wisdom—the ability to apply specific knowledge at the right time, in the right situation. This aspect is an overarching theme of this book.

The Business of Bioscience describes the development life stages in a biotech company and draws parallels to human life stages. This analogy is helpful in understanding when to transition a management style to meet the changing needs of an organization during company development. All companies have differing needs based upon the life stage of their organization. For instance, one can work on setting up proper financial accounting and compliance measures which are always essential; however, if an organization doesn’t possess more than 90 days of operating capital, financial accounting procedures should not be a priority at this stage. Understanding how to write an effective business plan is invaluable, but if the organization is having morale issues because of poor hiring decisions, this must first be addressed before loosing staff or seeing their motivation disappear. In order to be successful, entrepreneurs require information designed to the precise stage of organizational growth; the first step toward this is learning to recognize the characteristics of various corporate development life stages.

As you read The Business of Bioscience, you will learn the mechanics and business strategy of how to establish and grow a life science company. You will come away with an understanding of the expectations of biotech investors, and gain insight that will equip you to raise the needed capital for your company. Because securing funding for a biotechnology company is a crucial requirement if one hopes to have any opportunity for success, two chapters are devoted to multiple aspects of the fundraising and financing process. There is literally not enough capital available to fund all good ideas; this book provides the reader with an edge by outlining the expectations of investors and teaching what constitutes a fundable company.

The future of a start-up biotechnology company is heavily dependent upon the choices made at critical junctures. The consequences of various choices sometimes seem subtle but can have a dramatic impact on the future direction of a company. Therefore, it is essential that the biotech entrepreneur gain expansive working knowledge in all areas of business, market, and product development. In this book, you will learn the technical information coupled to strategy fitted into a context of the "bigger picture". All biotechnology companies will experience seemingly insurmountable challenges at some juncture but success can also be found through creativity and persistence; the author appropriately covers a rarely discussed but important topic, "When do you call it Quits?"

This book provides practical information directly applicable for building a biotech organization and developing a product through to commercialization regardless of how small or large a company. The information in The Business of Bioscience will help guide entrepreneurs and their teams through rough spots and help them avoid many detours along the way. Additional information can be found at www.businessofbioscience.com.