Ernest Solé Udina, Susana Domingo-Perez, Oriol Amat
{"title":"Biotechnology firms, signals, and venture capital investment","authors":"Ernest Solé Udina, Susana Domingo-Perez, Oriol Amat","doi":"10.3926/ic.1978","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Purpose: Biotechnology has gained such prominence that approximately 50% of the new drugs developed in the world are of biotechnological origin. Some of the Covid-19 vaccines are a good example of this. The biotechnology R&D projects are characterized by high costs, prolonged development times, and a high degree of uncertainty and failure. Few types of financial agents undertake such a risky investment: venture capital firms invest in high-tech, high-risk companies. In this paper, we analyze the signals that influence venture capital investment decisions.Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses about the effectiveness of these signals are validated by means of a probit regression with panel data on a sample of 210 biotechnology companies established in Spain over a ten-year period.Findings: Positive and negative signalling effect has been found for some of the phenomena analysed, which validate the proposed model.Research limitations/implications: A convenience sample has been used for methodological reasons, and some phenomena that could have some effect on the venture capital investment decisions have not been possible to observe, due to the lack of available data.Practical implications: It can be crucial for biotechnology firms that their managers know which characteristics make these firms attractive to venture capital firms. Additionally, it is important to know those signals that, instead of favouring this investment, deter it.Originality/value: The focus on the first venture capital investment -instead of the most usual focus on the amount invested- as an event that mitigates the information asymmetry level, the use of a probit regression with panel data, and such a quantitative analysis on the Spanish biotech industry, never done before, highlight the originality of this work. ","PeriodicalId":45252,"journal":{"name":"Intangible Capital","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Intangible Capital","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3926/ic.1978","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose: Biotechnology has gained such prominence that approximately 50% of the new drugs developed in the world are of biotechnological origin. Some of the Covid-19 vaccines are a good example of this. The biotechnology R&D projects are characterized by high costs, prolonged development times, and a high degree of uncertainty and failure. Few types of financial agents undertake such a risky investment: venture capital firms invest in high-tech, high-risk companies. In this paper, we analyze the signals that influence venture capital investment decisions.Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses about the effectiveness of these signals are validated by means of a probit regression with panel data on a sample of 210 biotechnology companies established in Spain over a ten-year period.Findings: Positive and negative signalling effect has been found for some of the phenomena analysed, which validate the proposed model.Research limitations/implications: A convenience sample has been used for methodological reasons, and some phenomena that could have some effect on the venture capital investment decisions have not been possible to observe, due to the lack of available data.Practical implications: It can be crucial for biotechnology firms that their managers know which characteristics make these firms attractive to venture capital firms. Additionally, it is important to know those signals that, instead of favouring this investment, deter it.Originality/value: The focus on the first venture capital investment -instead of the most usual focus on the amount invested- as an event that mitigates the information asymmetry level, the use of a probit regression with panel data, and such a quantitative analysis on the Spanish biotech industry, never done before, highlight the originality of this work.
期刊介绍:
The aim of Intangible Capital is to publish theoretical and empirical articles that contribute to contrast, extend and build theories that contribute to advance our understanding of phenomena related with management, and the management of intangibles, in organizations, from the perspectives of strategic management, human resource management, psychology, education, IT, supply chain management and accounting. The scientific research in management is grounded on theories developed from perspectives taken from a diversity of social sciences. Intangible Capital is open to publish articles that, from sociology, psychology, economics and industrial organization contribute to the scientific development of management and organizational science. Intangible Capital publishes scholar articles that contribute to contrast existing theories, or to build new theoretical approaches. The contributions can adopt confirmatory (quantitative) or explanatory (mainly qualitative) methodological approaches. Theoretical essays that enhance the building or extension of theoretical approaches are also welcome. Intangible Capital selects the articles to be published with a double bind, peer review system, following the practices of good scholarly journals. Intangible Capital publishes three regular issues per year following an open access policy. On-line publication allows to reduce publishing costs, and to make more agile the process of reviewing and edition. Intangible Capital defends that open access publishing fosters the advance of scientific knowledge, making it available to everyone. Intangible Capital publishes articles in English, Spanish and Catalan.