Entrepreneurship vs. Bioentrepreneurship

The word bioentrepreneurship and entrepreneurship share the similarity in the fact that they must have a great and an innovative idea behind starting a business setup and to raise an investment. Also, they both must have a great idea about marketing of the related products and managing their start-up. If we talk about the difference, the common difference is the sector or field in which a startup is carrying on. In simple words, entrepreneurship is the process of launching any new business based on an innovative idea. On the other hand, bioentrepreneurship is the process that is started in the field of science (i.e., biotechnology). Nowadays, bio-industrialization is the key to being a modern and developed country, and this is the only reason bioentrepreneurs are highly in demand. Thus, this chapter will help you to understand the pillars to setup a startup based on biotechnology that has an excellent future perspective not only for entrepreneurs but also for the nation.

Bioentrepreneurship Market Development

Bioentrepreneurship is a biological entity related to sciences that creates, builds, and acquires profit to establish a business. At present, the biggest challenges for bioentrepreneurs is to stand out from their competitors. There are various function that bioentrepreneurs apply to their businesses to be unique, such as marketing. Marketing includes product development, distribution methods, sales, advertising, etc. Despite of all these efforts, entrepreneurs are still facing a problem to sell products as the consumer preference and need is changing day by day. Therefore, to succeed in business today, it is very important to develop new strategies to change the existing products in order to provide good service to the consumers and retain the business. The process taken by the company to develop the existing market is known as market development. This chapter will focus on market development and selling the product according to consumer needs.

Bioentrepreneurship in Medical Biotechnology

Being a developing sector, biotechnology combines both medical science and various facets of a sustainable environment. Scientific innovations from academics and industry contribute towards the rise of bioentrepreneurship across the world. Medical biotechnology helps the treatment and prevention of human diseases by using living cells and cell materials to research and produce pharmaceutical and diagnostic products. It requires incubation of research, product, and its yield for the improvement of humans to transform medical research into an entrepreneurial industry. Biotechnology provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to harness the power of genomics for the development and marketing of new therapeutics. These opportunities allow entrepreneurs to visualize the creation of both disruptive business and disruptive technologies for today's business models. This chapter will summarize multiple features of entrepreneurship in the biotechnology industry in combination with other industries and will explain the significance of bio-entrepreneurship in the field of medical biotechnology.

Bioentrepreneurship in Environmental Biotechnology

Bioentrepreneurship is the combination of different activities carried out by groups of people to form an enterprise that designs and commercializes great products by merging various scientific and business disciplines. In this chapter, the authors review the impact of bioentrepreneurship in the field of environmental technology. This approaches as an alternative to protect and sustain nature focusing on different aspects like nanotechnology-assisted water purification, phytoremediation of polluted environment, microbial and vermi remediation, etc. Another aspect approached is the finding and development of new plants as a biomass source for energy production, which are objectives for start-ups and have great business potential. Finally, the chapter examines the ability of the proposed theoretical framework to transcend its environmental context and provide insight into expanding the domain of the study of entrepreneurship. Simply put, economic logics embody principles of economic coordination or conventions that guide interpretation of the technology and its value.

Small-Scale Development of Product

Small-scale product development is not for everyone, and it needs a high level of discipline, dedication, persistence, and creativity as well as a lot of work. Before setting up a small-scale business, one needs seed money, physical location of the business venture, construction work, equipment/machinery maintenance, management skills, accounting skills, and last but not least, marketing skills. For the development of any area, the small-scale industry development is very important mainly for the income source of the community and for employment opportunities. On the basis of study, four strategies that are used for the development of small-scale industries were found, and these strategies are 1) promotion and development of institutional, business groups, and cooperatives; 2) determination brands; 3) strategy competition with low cost and product development; 4) to improve final access market orientation strategies. On the basis of analysis of these strategies, they are prioritized, and the first priority is strategy.

Bioentrepreneurship in Agricultural Biotechnology

The agricultural biotechnology sector shares a common scientific foundation with the therapeutic biotechnology sector, including similar characteristics of a lengthy time to market for emerging products. But the challenges, goals, and opportunities for agricultural applications of biotechnology provide a very different context for innovation and entrepreneurs. Innovation means something novel, which can be a process or a way of doing something novel. Biotechnology entrepreneurship is summing all integrated activities that can create, develop, and finally, commercialize a biotechnology product. These sectors offer new business opportunities that, like agricultural biotechnology trait creation, enable entrepreneurs to think about creating disruptive businesses, not just disruptive technologies for today's business models. In this chapter, the authors conclude the unique aspects of entrepreneurship in the industry of biotechnology in contract with other industries and also discuss the importance of biotechnology entrepreneurs in agriculture.

Foreign Investors in Bioentrepreneurship in India

Bioentrepreneurship attracts entrepreneurs who can contribute by making scientific methods and products available to the society. Funding, infrastructure, skills, and commercialization capabilities influence the process of bioentrepreneurship. India with its large and highly efficient pool of the scientific community has lot to offer to the global market. Indian research is confined to theoretical research due to a missing link that unites research and commercialization and strict intellectual property regime. To overcome such challenges, the Indian government has taken initiatives to make the working environment friendly, innovative, efficient, and easy for foreign companies and investors by amending existing policies and facilities India's biotechnology industry. Foreign investment in India's biotechnology industry has led to an exponential increase from US$530 million in 2003 to US$4.3 billion in 2013. Foreign investment has played a big role in helping India's flourishing biotechnology industry.

Introduction to Bioentrepreneurship

Ever since the onset of civilization, humans have been continuously improvising and innovating on different aspects to make their livelihood more sustainable. This innovation reached a steep uptrend trajectory during the industrial revolution, and with the discovery of DNA and emergence of genetic engineering, our civilization entered a new era of biotechnology where desirable traits can be easily engineered into an organism to obtain a desired product. However, it was soon realized that in order to make the product reachable to the masses, integration of science, biology, and technology with business is of the utmost importance. This resulted in the genesis of the concept of bioentrepreneurship. Presently, it is a rapidly emerging discipline connecting two large domains, namely biotechnology and business. This chapter overviews bioentrepreneurship. It highlights the various requirements and measures implemented to start a bioentrepreneurship programme.

The Role of the Indian Government in Bioentrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship correlates to the entrepreneur who is creative, has risk taking capability, promotes capital formation, and seeks out investment opportunities in the market. In the National Institute for Transforming India Aayog's 5th Governing Council, the Government of India (GoI) aims to take the Indian economy to USD 5 trillion by 2024. Thus, India needs to significantly increase employment opportunities for which GoI is promoting skill development through biotechnology entrepreneurship and investing appreciably with a special focus on R&D to develop India into a world class bio-manufacturing hub. The DBT in collaboration with BIRAC has implemented flagship schemes such as ‘Make in India' and ‘Start up India'. The major objectives of this chapter are to lay out (1) the role of GoI to empower startups for growth through innovation and design, (2) a detailed overview of the various schemes offered by GoI for promoting skill development and innovation through bio-entrepreneurship, (3) major challenges faced by the government for implementation of schemes.

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) denote distinct types of conceptions of the mind for which property rights are documented. Basic and clinical scientists at research institutions often make ideas that have health benefits if developed and applied to the improvement of human wellbeing. Therefore, learning the basics of intellectual property protection and obtaining professional guidance in its management avoids such losses with a minimal burden of confidentiality on the investigator by using any of the mechanisms (patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and know-how agreements). The probability of scientific findings becoming accessible for public benefit is low without suitable intellectual property protection. This reality is particularly true in the life sciences and biotechnology arenas comparative to other areas of science, and hence, it is a prerequisite to know about intellectual property rights and their significance for better development.