Economy and Management in Biotechnology

The biotechnology companies needs people who take decisions on when and how to make a business of a scientific novelty developed in the lab. This course teaches you how to make such decisions for bulk products and high-value products.
The course consists of a financial, an entrepreneurial and an economic and managerial parts whose focus are:

• Economic potential of a new biotechnology product/process in the current biotech market
• Entrepreneurial approach to the creation, development and validation of business propositions in the Biotech sector
• The business/organizational structure to design and develop a novel biotechnology process/product at industrial scale

In the first part, you learn how to model the business behind a biotechnological product. The theory comprises three aspects:

• Analyse the effect of the production scale and of the production factors on cost analysis of the bioprocess in your company
• Analyse the financial aspect of your company: cash-flow analysis, funding, debt, stocks, product portfolio
  In the second part, you learn how to get in the market phase. This boils down to
• Insight on Entrepreneurial skills, tools and strategies to build a profitable and sustainable business in the biotech sector
• Knowledge on key milestones and decision points for developing a feasible business proposition
  In the third part, you learn how to consolidate the role of your company/business in the biotech market. This brings you into:
• Analyse the behavior of market stakeholders other than your company, such as potential competitors and customers, as well the government and society
• Designing the management structure of the business behind a biotechnological innovation both at small and at large industrial/market scale

This course is meant as a necessary step a series of bioprocess engineering courses at MSc level towards scaling a relevant industrial scale. The required knowledge is:

• Knowledge and skills from bioprocess engineering design courses such as BPE20306 Bioreactor Design, BPE-20806 Separation Process Design, or similar courses
• Knowledge skills from math courses such as MAT14903 Mathematics 1 and MAT15003 Mathematics 2 or similar courses. In particular it is required proficiency in analysing and solving math problems involving sets of algebraic and ordinary differential equations.
• Proficiency in team-working and report/plan writing
  This course provides the needed support for the design cases in BCT-32306 Advanced Biorefinery, and for BPE-60312 Bioprocess Design.

• Apply to a biotech business the principles of cost and profit analysis, microeconomic analysis of markets, entrepreneurial tools and management analysis

• Analyse the financial structure of biotechnology companies

• Analyse the role of the market stakeholders (companies, clients, government) in the biotechnology sector

• Design a simple marketing and pricing strategy for both novel and well-established biotechnological products

• Apply state-of-art business and revenue models for different product / service combinations and the necessary skills and tools to do so

• Develop a feasible business proposition to initiate, manage and commercialise biotechnological products/services at to the most suitable industrial scale

• Assignment report (30%) 2nd team assignment with report evaluation on the designing the most appropriate business plan for a novel Biotechnological product/service for start-ups (30%);
• Assignment report (30%) 1st team assignment with report evaluation on the cost, profit and financial analysis (30%);
• Assignment design (40%) 3rd team assignment with report evaluation on a chosen novel and potentially profitable business strategy for consolidated companies, including market analysis with related stakeholders (competitors, consumers, government, society) (40%);

Bachelor in Biotechnology, Biobased Science or Economic field including quantitative courses regarding general principle of bioprocess design

• A reader will be provided at the beginning of the course. Additional reading advice (chapters/papers from scientific and industrial literature, lecture notes) will be given at the beginning of each topic.