Venture Capital and the European Biotechnology Industry

by William Bains

My analysis of the nature, causes and cures of the deep problems that the European biotechnology industry is suffering. Much of the problems are driven not by the difficulty of inventing new products (although that is difficult) or the incompetence or greed of managers and founders (although that too can be significant), but by the behaviour of investors, perticularly those styling themselves 'venture capital'. This is a fact-based polemic, not your average anecdotal feel-good management book. If you want to fele good about things, read Tom Peters. If you want to know how the biotechnology industry really works, read this.

More on the dedicated pages here.

Opal Drug Discovery

I am co-founder and CTO of the drug discovery start-up company Opal Drug Discovery, which is formally incorporated in Edinburgh but has operations in Cambridge, UK and Ahmedabad, India. Opal does not have much of a web site yet.

Entrepreneurship

Interested in Biotechnology Entrepreneurship? I teach on the Cambridge University MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise, Europe's best opportunity to learn what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in the biotechnology industry, and the nuts and bolts of how to do it.

Astrobiology

An enthusiast since the Apollo missions, see this page for background and an informal introduction to my research on the possibility of life on other worlds. I am priviledged to work with Prof. Sara Seager (MIT) on this.

Contact me on: william@williambains.co.uk

Your challenge for the day - find a Snark somewhere in these pages.