Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech,   ISBN:9781591398400

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This book begins with the insight that good science is different from good business. Beyond this, I found the rest of the book kind of stale.

The author extensively discusses the idiosyncrasies of the biotech industry. He talks about the great amount of capital and trail-and-error required in drug development, supposedly with the intention of arguing that biotech is different from other sectors. However, I kept thinking, "But of course biotech is different from other sectors, it's a different sector." What this book lacked, I thought, were more comparisons and similarities between other areas of business. While biotech is the only industry that actively seeks drugs that hit molecular targets, it's not the only industry that heavily progresses through research and development. I was surprised that the author didn't tap the extensive history of R&D in other private sectors. After all, there's an array of specific examples to choose from, be it the microprocessor chip wars or the development of hybrid cars. Using lessons from those endeavors, and connecting them to biotech, I thought, could've been pretty novel.

Instead, the author rarely pulls insights from outside of the biotech industry, while maintaining that biotech is new, not fully developed, and can learn a lot from business. As such, the book has a very insular feel and seems very limited in scope.

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I found this book to be well-researched, current, and insightful. If you're at all interested in the biotech business, especially in starting a company or investing, read this book first. Pisano's narrative really helps one understand the foundations of the biotech industry, and sheds some light on what does, and doesn't, work within that industry. The fact that it's off the Harvard Business School Press gives it additional credibility, which is well deserved. A wealth of references, as well as a listing of the companies listed in the study, give the reader both a sense of the research that went into the book and a start on the search for more resources on the subject.

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For my money, most business school professors write with a detached, dry atmosphere about business topics.

Not Gary Pisano!

He has a strong point of view that the ecosystem for biotech is not working well. His observations about why are right to the point and convincing.

His prescriptions are well worth considering.

If you're new to biotech, this is a great book to start out with. I would then proceed to Building Biotechnology, which is also a fine book.

Customer Rating: 

I don't know what I expected from this book, except for some new insights on how to invest in the biotech industry. I was extremely disappointed to find a whiney critique of biotech companies that take enormous risks in discovering new life-saving or life-improving chemicals, and oftentimes crash and burn in the process. Well, that's capitalism, for ya'! Would the author prefer a centrally run system in which lazy bureaucrats barely advance scientific discovery? It all comes back to risk and reward. This book is the updated version of complaints about Silicon Valley, and the dot-com bust. OK, the technology business may not be profitable as a whole, but the efforts of millions of people in the pursuit of the big payoff has created great advances and has improved lives in making people more efficient, more educated, and less carbon-intensive.