Abstract
<p>In the modern healthcare and medical sectors corporate bio-pharmaceutical firms continue to scale down their in-house research and development (R&amp;D) activities in favour of outsourcing the services to bio-tech ventures. These small but, entrepreneurial research-oriented organisations have increased dramatically. They are predominantly owned by bio-entrepreneurs who are extensively experienced scientists. In the science-based industry they operate in, innovation “ecosystems” consisting of global business and social networks are a common feature. As such, they have to consistently exploit them to complement the knowledge gaps in their enterprises. In that context, the paper sets out to investigate five bio-entrepreneurs currently active in biotechnology within the East Midlands region in England. It particularly examines the role performed by their prior-learning and their cumulative science experiences in recognising, assimilating and productively applying science-related knowledge acquired in their innovation “ecosystems”.</p>
Highlights
Innovation “ecosystems”, in the science intensive healthcare and medical sectors, are the main sources of economic effects that include knowledge and technical know-how (Ho & Wilson, 2006)
This study aims to advance the notion that prior-learning and the cumulative science experiences of bio-entrepreneurs can be a catalyst that facilitates the economic development of many bio-tech ventures
Bio-tech venture A’s bio-entrepreneur holds a PhD. He is a former global leader of Pharmacometrics at a large pharmaceutical company which was based in the East Midlands region in England and he has worked in both Switzerland and Italy
Summary
Innovation “ecosystems”, in the science intensive healthcare and medical sectors, are the main sources of economic effects that include knowledge and technical know-how (Ho & Wilson, 2006). Innovation “ecosystems” consist of individuals, material resources, communities, universities, research institutions and labs collectively working towards enabling knowledge flows, while supporting technology development (Bramwell et al, 2012; Mercan & Goktas, 2011). They provide companies with assets and resources such as new knowledge and information, financial capital, marketing expertise, networking opportunities (Jackson, 2011) which accelerate company growth and development. The companies work towards supporting technology development and the free flow of fluid information (Bramwell et al, 2012) In such complex systems of multiple relationships, significant amounts of science-related data are generated. Smilor (1997) maintains that, entrepreneurs learn by replicating the actions of other entrepreneurs
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