ABSTRACT
When conceptualizing modern biotechnology, Brink, et al. (2004) suggest that a distinction should be made between ‘core’ biotechnology and associated sectors such as pharmaceuticals, medical technologies, agriculture and food. Dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs) are generally seen as the main actors that represent the ‘core’ of modern biotechnology. A DBF is defined as a firm whose predominant activity involves the application of biotechnology techniques to produce goods or services and/or the performance of biotechnology research and development (OECD 2005). Over the past 20 years DBFs have become increasingly important for the establishment and growth of biotechnology clusters. At its genesis in the 1970s, however, biotechnology, and in particular drug development based on biotechnology, was primarily the domain of academic research and, to a limited extent, large pharmaceutical companies. Through subsequent processes of creative destruction, shifts in basic science from chemistry to modern biology based drug design created strong incentives for new entrants (DBFs) and reduced the earlier dominance of pharmaceutical companies that were locked into the traditional, chemical technological paradigm (Casper and Matraves 2003; Cooke 2007).
