Improving Investor-Investee Matches with Regulation: Evidence from the Orphan Drug Act & Global Biotechnology Industry

Posted: 10 Jan 2017

See all articles by Yujin Kim

Yujin Kim

ShanghaiTech University - School of Entrepreneurship and Management

Chirantan Chatterjee

SPRU-Sussex, U-Sussex Business School; Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 26, 2016

Abstract

Venture capitalists (VCs) ideally like to invest in innovations at a nascent stage but this is inherently incorporated with huge risks (Ruhnka and Young 1991, Gompers 1995). Because it is difficult to value novel technologies at an early development stage, VCs may be herding into financing advanced-stage projects for which an archive of scientific knowledge and commercial performance are available that enables a correct valuation (Lerner 2009). A response to this market failure in investor-investee matches might be an institutional change that can steer investors towards supporting new innovations at an early stage, providing more information necessary to value young projects. Using the setting of the Orphan Drug Act (ODA) in the European Union (EU) enacted in 1999, we test these ideas in the fields of biotechnology using a difference in difference methodology and find that VCs are indeed more likely to invest in early-stage technologies in sub-fields disproportionately affected by ODA. In addition, we document that exit performances of VC-backed startups do not get worse as a result of VCs investing into early-stage innovations. Our results suggest that VCs are enabled to make fully-informed decisions as ODA provides some additional information on early-stage technologies. We conclude discussing the role of public policy in correcting market failure between investor-investee matches in the market for entrepreneurial finance.

JEL Classification: G18, L26, O3, G24

Suggested Citation

Kim, Yujin and Chatterjee, Chirantan, Improving Investor-Investee Matches with Regulation: Evidence from the Orphan Drug Act & Global Biotechnology Industry (December 26, 2016). IIM Bangalore Research Paper No. 533, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2896582 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2896582

Yujin Kim (Contact Author)

ShanghaiTech University - School of Entrepreneurship and Management ( email )

100 Haike Rd
Pudong Xinqu, Shanghai
China

Chirantan Chatterjee

SPRU-Sussex, U-Sussex Business School ( email )

Brighton, BN1 9SL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p535606-chirantan-chatterjee

Hoover Institution, Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.hoover.org/profiles/chirantan-chatterjee

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