Exploiting the business opportunities in biotech connections : The power of social networks

Networks have a well-established importance in business. Here network analysis, grounded in socialnetwork theory, is used to analyse two international biotech business-to-business environments. Ofadditional value, the methodology employed is described for the benefi t of academics and practitionersalike. Swedish and Australian biotech fi rms are analysed through the examination of internet networks.Once gathered and analysed following the described methodology, several features of the networks canbe determined. Most critically, identifi cation of important actors and structural holes within networksallows valuable entrepreneurial opportunities to be unearthed. Biotech fi rms and suppliers, particularlythose with a global reach, are best positioned to take advantage of such information.This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of Commercial Biotechnology. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Journal of Commercial Biotechnology 13, 245–257 (1 August 2007) is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jcb/journal/v13/n4/full/3050063a.html.QC 2012011