The focus of the industry on living organisms of the human species and highly controlled standards provide unique considerations for business leaders. These biotechnological synthesis of remedies aspects make the industry a natural source of creativity, leading to major breakthroughs which have improved the quality of agriculture, led to the creation of biofuels and helped to create life-saving pharmaceutical products.

Biotech startups have a variety of options for revenue generation strategies, with most choosing either a technology partnership or an asset creation and out-licensing strategy. Technology partnering can generate higher revenue and lower financial risk, while outlicensing and asset creation strategies can yield greater returns. A growing number of biotechs at the early stages of research employ an approach that blends these two approaches.

Those who choose a product-oriented strategy can achieve commercial success, if they are able to bring their pipelines to the right stage and also find a significant pharmaceutical partner or an investor with a large sum of money. It can be a costly proposition. It is important to consider the balance between opportunistic strategies in taking advantage of outside resources and the right scientific decisions regarding homegrown projects.

The “platform” model is another option to generate revenue. It is a less expensive method than the development-oriented model, but it also involves substantial risk. In this model, biotechs own and develop their own platform technology, before teaming with pharma giants to develop a collection of drug discovery projects aimed at specific diseases (i.e. disease of x in biology). Advinus Therapeutics, among others have adopted this strategy.