Is the commitment is too long-term to create incentives for biotech companies — who have shorter time horizons?
Some biotechs — or more specifically, the venture capitalists that invest in them — are interested in returns over a few years rather than a decade or more. But biotechs will be able to invest in medical innovations, confident that they will be able to sell or license their technologies to other firms — such as pharmaceutical companies that are willing to take the longer term risk of developing commercial products. Biotech companies will be able to earn returns from these inventions in the same way as they do from products they develop for affluent country markets. Biotech companies, and venture capitalists, have been particularly enthusiastic about this idea.
