This paper explores entrepreneurship in biotech through the in depth analysis of four new ventures located in the Upper-Rhine Biovalley. One of the strengths of this paper is the presence of both successful cases of entrepreneurship and of cases of failures. This gives the opportunity to discuss...

This paper proposes a unified conceptual framework to analyse the multiple role and consequences of patents in the case of biotechnology research tools. We argue that the knowledge/information and independent/complementary nature of research tools define heterogeneous frameworks in which the...

This paper re-examines the concept of open innovation developed in organization sciences (Chesbrough, 2003a). We claim that this paradigm, which insists on the distributive nature of innovation among a wide range of heterogeneous actors, does not put enough emphasis on the condition of access to...

The traditional perception of patents puts the emphasis on their importance to exclude imitators and to restore incentives to invent. This view is far too restrictive and at variance with many empirical and theoretical works. We show that these contradictions can be overcome by shifting from a...

This paper explores start-up creation in biotech through an in-depth analysis of four new ventures located in the Upper Rhine Biovalley. This analysis helps us discuss the role of several factors in the performance of a new biotech firm. The study specifically outlines three elements, namely:...

Why do firms decide sometimes to disclose widely part of their knowledge while they could have kept it secret ? We attempt to provide an original answer to this question by combining the literature in economics of innovation and in economics of incomplete information. We suggest that such...