Written by Arlen Meyers, MD/MBA and Patrick Hurley, Ph.D., this article reviews the different
bioentrepreneurship education programmes available in the United States and suggest some of
their critical success factors. Download the full pdf or peruse the intro here...

INTRODUCTION The three pillars of bioentrepreneurship are scientific and managerial talent, technology and money. 1

 Unfortunately, the supply of both scientific and managerial talent is not meeting the demand. According to a recent National Science Foundation report, the demand for biotech workers is outpacing the rate at which US universities are churning out graduates, and because academic institutions are not able to satisfy the industry’s demand for new PhD graduates, attracting and keeping workers is becoming an increasingly serious problem in the drug development process. Three categories of employees are in the shortest supply: biologists to make discoveries, researchers to take those discoveries through the proof-of-concept stage, and people to plan and execute clinical trials. 2

In addition to scientific talent, management talent is scarce and is often the weakest pillar in most biotechnology companies. The skills required of a biotech executive are myriad and the path from an R & D-driven to a market-driven culture requires a complex repertoire of knowledge, skills and talents.

The demand for talent is an international problem. A recent report describing the Singapore cluster, for example, noted that their biggest problem is its continued shortage of entrepreneurial scientists and managers. 3

In an attempt to identify those factors that attract bioscience companies, The New York Economic Development Council met with more than 600 bioscience companies in 18 countries. They also reached out to the more than 100 bioscience companies located in New York City and worked closely with the city ’ s major academic institutions. Throughout this exhaustive process they identified the criteria used by companies to make start-up or relocation decisions. Interestingly, the elements used by both start-ups and seasoned companies are quite similar. Access to talent was second only to proximity to world-class research centres in their list. 4

Biotechnology and life science commercialisation efforts have unique characteristics that separate them from other technology-based industries. 5 As a result, Li and Halal note that leaders of such efforts have special challenges. Bioentrepreneurs need to create an environment that balances creative and innovative freedom with accountability. They need to build an ethos of collaboration and create a social network of scientists. Finally, they need to emphasise the value of science and its benefits to patients and humanity without overemphasising the business goals.

Given these challenges and in response to the need for properly trained people, bioentrepreneurship educational programmes, designed to train leaders and managers of new and existing life science companies, are emerging throughout the world. Some programmes are offered by business schools, some as part of a technology development programme in schools of engineering or other technical schools and some are affiliated with other service provider or bioscience trade association entities.

 However, since these programmes are so new, there is little standardisation of curricula, educational resources are scattered, learning objectives are not standardised and the value propositions of such programmes are not clear. Like any new innovation, there needs to be a compelling value proposition addressing a clear market need if the programmes are to be sustainable and make a difference.

In this paper, we present our review of bioentrepreneurship education programmes in the United States and suggest some critical success factors.