Customer Reviews

The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary: Including Terms In Accounting, Biotechnology, Business, Computers, Fund Acquisition, Human Resources, Law, Patents, Marketing And Sales - With Eight Appendices

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary by Dr. michael Pappas, is the only book I know of that combines both biotech and business terms in an easy to understand format, and is a very useful resource. The listing of venture capital firms and recruiters specializing in biotechnology was very helpful and saves an entrepreneur a lot of time. Wlodek Mandecki, Ph.D., President & CEO, PharmaSeq, Inc.

In perusing the book, I found it to be somewhat of a dissapointment. Technologies and terminologies which were present during its publication are not listed (snp's, est's). In addition, other terms I find are innapropriate for the book which, regardless of a persons background, should be obvious (dissatisfaction, five-line address, Netscape Navigator). Hopefully a revised/expanded edition is planned for 2000/01.

The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary is a very timely book, as the last 5 years has witnessed a dramatic increase in number of start-up companies in biotech and drug chemistry field. That's why I believe this Glossary will be extremely useful both for biotechnologists oriented to business settings and for business people who have shifted their interest to biotechnology.

The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary combines a wide set of terms from business, law, biotechnology, and informatics. The terms are carefully selected on the basis of frequency of usage in above fields. They are arranged in alphabetic order, have printed in a large format, and covered the essential basic concepts in the financial and science areas. The explanations of terms are given in a short, understandable form.

Especially useful are common sense terms , that in biotechnology have a specific meaning. For example, for the term "Attenuated" is defined as "...pathogenic organisms that have been weakened in a such way that they do not cause disease in a vaccinated individual." Alternatively, for biologists the term "Lead qualification" is unfamiliar but helpful to biotech employees: "The process of determining whether a lead is ready or able to purchase a product or service"

From 8 Appendixes the list of US Venture Capital Companies with Interest in Biotechnology (Appendix 3) looks especially important. Appendix 3 gives information about investors who makes and who does not make fund to start-up companies in the USA. Appendix 4 gives the same information for possible foreign investors. The list of Recruiters Specializing in Biotechnology (Appendix 2) will save time for founders of biotech start-ups. The table showing triplet nucleotide sequences that define amino acids will help business types and sales people who need to become familiar with basic molecular biology. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge base in biotechnology business.

N. Kogan, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, NYU, Anesthesiology Department.

The Biotech Entrepreneur' s Glossary is a truly useful book for entrepreneurs and others dealing in biotech. It includes a lot of useful terms in multiple subjects relating to biotech business and operations. As an engineer, I find the biochemistry terms and list of acronyms to be especially helpful.

"The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary" is truly the Rosetta Stone of biotech venture capital, providing complete definitions of both technical and business terminology. The book also 8 appendices that cover frequent abbreviations and provide lists of biotech recruiters and VC firms. As an entrepreneur, I have found my copy to be tremendously useful, and would recommend this valuable resource to anyone involved in the field.

The second edition of The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary, which was published earlier this year, has been expanded to include more biotechnology, computer and business terms. I was pleased to note that there are more US and EU VCs listed in the appendix and that many had web site addresses were included as well as e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. Also, the appendix containing biotech recruiters was expanded. This is the first crossover glossary for biotech and business terms I have seen. It will clearly assist entrepreneur's, biotechnologists, and others who wish to have a single source for biotech, business, patent and IS terminology. Every start-up requires tools to help make it successful; this glossary is one of them.

I was very disapointed in this book - especially in view of its high price. I was really hoping it would have more detailed examples or definitions for some of the more complicated terms. The definitions were mostly one to two sentences and, unfortunately, many of the entries fell into one of two categories; Terms that, if you did not know them already, the definitions probably wouldn't clear much up. (eg. Enzyme: protein-based catalyst produced by living cells., or Fab fragment: one of two or more identical fragments with one antigen biding site produced by the action of a proteolytic enzyme on an antibody.) or terms that were very simple and really took up space that could have been used to explain other terms in more detail (eg. Envelope: the paper cover used to transport mail..., Currency: money. legal tender authorized by a government., Surf: to travel through cyberspace.... or, Judgement: the resulting decision of a court of law after a trial or hearing)
There were still some useful entries but not enough to justify the price. You would be better off investing the money in a couple of books that are more detailed and using their indexes to find info (you're going to need them anyway if this glossary is all you have).

The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary is a very good book for people from different backgrounds. It includes a lot of information needed for biotech entrepreneur such as terms and abbreviations in biotech, business, fund acquisition, law and patents, etc. Readers can get a lot of information related to biotechnology from this single book without searching around for terms in many different glossaries. This book also has eight appendices including the most important and basic biology terms, biotechnology recruiters and their phone numbers, and even some large venture capital companies and contact information. All these make this book a great tool for biotechnologists and business persons!

Dr. Pappas, with many years of experience in the biotechnology industry and as a biotechnology consultant, has compiled a unique glossary aimed at the biotechnology entrepreneur. It is unique in that it bridges the fields of science, business, law and marketing- all essential for the operation of a successful biotechnology business. The eight appendices that include acronyms, biotech recruiters and venture capitalists interested in biotechnology provide much useful information that is not readily available elsewhere. Dr. Pappas did all the legwork to provide a single reference source with a wealth of information. I am sure the biotechnology entrepreneur will find it useful and refer to it often.

Several years ago when I read an advertisement on a digital camera, I came across the word "megapixels". "What does that mean to the camera?" I wondered. Now that digital cameras are very popular, I can say that most people understand the meaning "megapixel" as it refers to digital camera --- 1 million pixel resolution but rating counts the sensors on the CCD, not the pixels in the resulting image (remember that is important.) Biotech is a highly geared up technology nowadays. There are so many words or terms you might not have heard just one year ago. "The Biotech Entrepreneur's Glossary" (2nd Edition) is a book coming at the right time for entrepreneurs to have a better understanding and to get a perspective on business in biotechnology area.
I have biomedical engineering background (Ph. D.). When getting in this area, I was really confused by some words and terms. An example is "differentiation". In electronics a "differentiator" is a circuit in which the output voltage is in proportion to the rate of change of the input voltage. But "differentiation" in the Biotech Glossary defines it as the process of cell and tissue specialization involving differential gene expression. In addition, some words and terms are hard to find definitions in other dictionaries. For example, "emulsification" which I could not found in "Merriam-Webster" dictionary, is defined in the Biotech Glossary as the "solubilization" of liquids or oil into very small volumes of water." These are very helpful to an engineer focusing in biotech.
At the end of the book there are eight appendices for the most website links and information of biotech recruiters, venture capital firms, and government offices.
Those are very useful resources for business startup and financing.
Overall, the definitions of words and terms from contemporary biotechnology point of view and the appendices regarding venture capitalists and recruiters make this book very unique and essential to be a book on your desk.