Directories of Company, Product and Research Project Information

Abstract

There are now well over 800 companies world-wide who are active in the business of biotechnology. Counting investors, sponsors, licensees, distributors and supporting services such as laboratory equipment and chemical suppliers, publishers and consultants, the number of firms involved must be well in excess of 5000. All types of commercial operation are represented from small groups of academic researchers seeking financial support by doing contract research, to major multinational pharmaceutical, oil, and chemical companies. As discussed in Chapter 1, many of the small companies have been formed in the last five to ten years in the USA. New ones are still being established every month but some others have merged or filed for bankruptcy. Some companies have remained small but reasonably successful as service operations, largely performing contract work for other organizations or supplying specialty markets, but others, such as Genentech, have grown rapidly with the avowed intention of becoming fully independent concerns. Most began as private companies but the costs of financing high technology research are great and the financial returns slow, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, so many biotechnology businesses have gone public, raising additional finance by large share offerings on the stock markets.