Characterizing MIT's serial scientist-entrepreneurs in life sciences

Since the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the commercialization of ideas generated in academia has driven significant startup activity and expansion in the life sciences. This commercial transformation has been shown by others to be concentrated among a relatively small number of elite academic institutions. However, within these institutions, we find that a small number of prestigious scientists are disproportionately responsible for entrepreneurial and commercial activity. To date, limited research has been conducted which aims to understand the characteristics of such serial scientist-entrepreneurs or their significance in early commercial ventures. This study identifies and characterizes 18 serial scientist-entrepreneurs (defined as faculty who have founded or served on the board of directors of 3 or more startups) on the basis of academic impact, patenting, and social network centrality, as compared to their first-time entrepreneur (i.e., faculty who founded or directed 1-2 companies) and noncommercial peers. These individuals constitute a subset of 66 scientist-entrepreneurs from a population of the 493 scientists who served as faculty in life sciences-related departments at MIT, during the period of 1981 to 2005 (representing the primary commercialization period for biotechnology).

Department dc:contributor.department

Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Chiu, Eugene, 1979-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Langer.

• Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35552

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35552