Privatsphäre-Einstellungen

Steigerung der Innovationsfähigkeit bei mittelständischen Pharmaunternehmen durch alternative Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten

Dr. Gunter Festel^1,2 und Prof. Roman Boutellier²

FESTEL CAPITAL¹, Hünenberg (Schweiz), und ETH Zürich, Lehrstuhl für Technologie- and Innovationsmanagement², Zürich (Schweiz)

Small and medium sized pharmaceutical companies (pharmaceutical SMEs) in Germany see the importance of innovations and want to realise these, but many of them are unable to carry out various interesting projects due to the lack of financial resources. A number of pharmaceutical SMEs are not utilising existing innovation potential, as there is a lack of adequate transparency and resources to use the current licensing and co-operation chances. Furthermore, many projects, especially those from the biotech industry, are seen as too immature for the realisation of concrete co-operations.
Pharmaceutical SMEs critically view the shortage of innovations with regard to long-term survival. Therefore, innovative business and financing models are necessary. Besides the possibility of mezzanine funding, so-called development and royalty funds could remove the financing bottlenecks; in North America there are numerous successful examples of this type of funding. Thus, with the help of external investors, the financing of pharmaceutical development projects could be possible. As many pharmaceutical SMEs are highly open to external financing of selected development projects, these models could achieve an innovation boost in the pharmaceutical SME sector, and, with an appropriate construction, significant tax advantages in the licensing business could also be realised.