Financial and Organisational Innovation in UK Biotech

英国的生物技术公司越来越多地从金融市场获得资金，如另类投资市场（AIM），而不是传统的风险投资（VC）公司，因为他们对传统风险投资公司的糟糕建议和缺乏资金支持感到不满。此外，许多这些公司采用了创新的商业模式，通过使用经验丰富的董事会和顾问来获取外部知识，从而加快了产品开发过程。由于之前的研究主要集中在风险资本家的融资上，目前对于哪种商业模式最适合这种新形式的融资，以及这些董事会和顾问如何受到新形式融资的激励，人们知之甚少。本研究旨在(a)了解这些变化如何影响公司绩效；(b)开发创新的管理工具，帮助公司建立一个强大的董事会，并展示董事会应该如何运作，以及它应该如何获得AIM、其他非风险投资资金来源和专家顾问。以前对生物技术初创企业的研究通常借鉴了一种从20世纪80年代美国经验中推断出来的模型，在这种模型中，公司发展的阶段与融资类型有关：种子资金（包括大学技术资金）；商业天使;V-C（风险资本）紧随其后的是IPO（金融市场首次公开发行）或贸易销售。虽然这种模式可能曾经很有用，但它越来越不适合英国，因为一些公司正在缩短周期的各个阶段，而其他公司正在开发替代路线。AIM目前在英国科技领域，尤其是生物技术领域的融资总量上超过了风险投资，这一事实突显了英国如何朝着独特的市场化生物技术融资模式迈进。在这种新模式下，大学衍生公司和其他初创公司利用强大的知识产权和技术，直接从成立到组建一个高技能的董事会。这些董事会很早就培养出了足以让中型上市公司印象深刻的资质，并被用来获取通常与成熟公司相关的外部专业知识。采用这种模式的公司更多地依赖于高层董事会和专家的管理建议（而不是风险投资和大学技术转让办公室）。人们一直认为，这种知识外包策略无法奏效，因为初创公司缺乏吸引此类高级顾问的资源。然而，预备研究和第一手经验（其中一位提议者是几个生物技术委员会的成员）表明，这种做法越来越重要。该项目的两个研究方向——资助创新和新的管理知识安排——是紧密相连的。很明显，使用强大的董事会和高水平的外部顾问会使一家年轻的公司在公开市场上市时更具吸引力，使他们能够吸引更多的资金来源。虽然参与公开可见的、快速增长的公司的机会首先吸引了高实力的董事会。通过更好地理解这些变化，并开发管理工具来协助公司，该项目将协助英国经济中高科技生物技术公司的发展，并扩大创新融资形式的应用。

Biotechnology firms in the UK increasingly access funds from financial markets, such as the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), rather than traditional venture capital (VC) firms because they are dissatisfied with the poor advice and lack of funding support from traditional VCs. In addition, many of these firms have adopted innovative business models that speed up product development processes by using highly experienced boards of directors and advisors to access external knowledge. Because previous research has focused on funding from venture capitalists, at present little is known about what sorts of business models are most appropriate for this new form of funding and how these boards and advisors are motivated by new forms of financing. This research seeks to (a) understand how these changes impact firm performance and (b) develop innovative management tools to help firms set up a powerful board, and show how that board should operate and how it should access AIM, other non-VC sources of money, and specialist advisors.Previous research on biotechnology start-ups typically draws on a model extrapolated from US experience in the 1980s, where the stages of firm development are linked to types of funding: seed funding (including university technology funds); business angels; V-C (venture capital) followed by IPO (initial public offering on financial markets) or trade sales. While the model may have once been useful, it is increasingly inappropriate for the UK as some firms are short-circuiting stages of the cycle, while others are developing alternative routes. The fact that AIM is now larger than VC as a total supply of finance to UK technology in general and to biotechnology in particular emphasises how the UK has moved towards a distinctive market-based biotechnology funding model.Under this new model, university spin-outs and other start-up firms exploit strong intellectual property over their technology to go straight from founding to forming a highly-skilled board of directors. These boards develop credentials impressive enough for a medium sized public-listed-company very early and are used to access levels of external, specialist professional knowledge normally associated with well established firms. Firms adopting this model rely much more heavily on high powered boards and specialists for managerial advice (rather than VCs and university technology transfer offices). It has been assumed that this knowledge outsourcing strategy could not work as start-up firms lack the resources to attract such high-level advisors. However, preparatory research and first hand experience (one of the proposers is on several biotechnology boards) suggests that the practice is increasingly important. The two strands of research within the project - funding innovations and new managerial knowledge arrangements - are closely connected. It seems clear that using high-powered boards and high levels of external advisors makes a young firm more attractive for floatation on public markets, enabling them to draw on much larger sources of funding. While the opportunity to be involved in public visible, fast growth firms attracts the high-powered boards in the first place. By better understanding these changes, and developing management tools to assit firms this project will asssit the development of high-tech biotech firms within the UK economy and extend the application of innovative forms of financing.