Too Old to Start a Biotech Business: The Bigger Question Is What It Takes to Build One
I began my entrepreneurial journey later in life, confident that my experience had prepared me well. I had written bankable business plans for start-up ventures, raised millions of rand in funding and helped establish several spin-out companies from the organisation where I worked. I understood both science and business, and thought I knew what it took to build a company. Starting six companies of my own over the following two years showed me how much I still had to learn. It changed my understanding of the deep-tech start-up landscape and, fundamentally, the way I worked.
Leaving the corporate world also meant leaving behind the support structures I had taken for granted. In an established organisation, you have people to call about finance, legal matters, administration, and operations. When you start a business, many of those responsibilities land on your desk. One day you are the scientist and innovator; the next you are preparing a funding proposal, reviewing a contract, following up on an invoice and working out how to meet payroll.
So, at what age should you decide to become an entrepreneur? There is no set age. A large US study found that the average founder age among the fastest-growing new ventures was 45, and that relevant industry experience was strongly associated with success. A broader review found that the relationship between age and success varies depending on how success is measured.[1, 2] These findings challenge the assumption that entrepreneurship belongs to the young. They also remind me that experience is useful, but it is no substitute for learning how to run your own venture.
Resilience is a working skill
Deep-tech and biotech businesses rarely follow a straight path. Development can take years and require substantial funding before a product reaches customers.[3]
Experiments disappoint. Funders say no. A potential partner changes direction. Regulatory requirements or manufacturing costs reveal problems that were not obvious at the start.
Resilience means taking those setbacks seriously, learning from them and deciding what to do next. Resourcefulness matters too: founders often have to make careful use of the people, knowledge and resources already within reach. Research suggests that this can help young ventures cope with constraints, although makeshift solutions should not become a permanent substitute for the systems a growing business needs.[4, 5]
Understand the whole business
In the early stages, an entrepreneur may need to manage accounts, tax administration, contracts, customer discussions, operations and fundraising alongside the technical work. You do not have to become a qualified accountant or lawyer. You do need enough understanding to ask informed questions, recognise problems and know when to bring in a specialist.
As the company grows, these functions can be outsourced or assigned to a team. But the founder remains responsible for understanding how the business operates. If you do not know what the work involves, it is difficult to judge what support you need or whether it is helping. Multitasking is often unavoidable at first; the longer-term skill is choosing where your attention is most needed.
Build a network before you need it
A biotech founder cannot supply every skill, facility and connection alone. Advisory boards can bring experience in regulation, manufacturing, finance, clinical development or commercial strategy. Other entrepreneurs can share practical lessons. Incubators can offer mentoring, specialist facilities and access to networks, particularly when their support is suited to the venture’s stage and needs.[6]
Funding also requires a plan. A founder should know what the next milestone will cost, what it will prove and how the business will reach the milestone after that. Grants, co-funding, partnerships, customer income and investment each have a possible place. Access to money matters, but so does knowing which source fits the work ahead.
Spin-outs need people who have built businesses
Universities, science councils, technology transfer offices and incubation hubs perform important work. They help researchers assess opportunities, protect intellectual property and navigate institutional requirements. But a spin-out cannot be built solely through an institutional process. Decisions about licensing terms, company formation, leadership, funding and timing must also make sense to founders, customers and potential investors.
In my view, some support programmes would benefit from more people who have personally started and run companies, including ventures that did not succeed. A study of Spanish universities found that accumulated technology transfer experience was associated with spin-out and licensing outcomes.[7] Another study linked outside management with commercialisation by university spin-outs.[8] Neither result establishes that every research manager lacks entrepreneurial understanding or that a particular appointment will automatically accelerate a deal.
An entrepreneur in residence could work alongside researchers and technology transfer teams to test the opportunity, help form a founding team, challenge assumptions in a business plan and consider whether a spin-out or a licence is the better route. Research suggests these practitioners can bridge gaps between universities and business when they are properly integrated into decision-making.[9, 10] Someone who has raised funding, negotiated with partners, hired a team and learned from failure brings practical judgement that complements scientific, legal and institutional expertise.
Protect the knowledge that makes the business valuable
Intellectual property (IP) is central to many deep-tech and biotech ventures, but an IP strategy should begin with the business opportunity, not a target number of patent applications. Founders need to identify what gives the venture an advantage, who owns it, what competitors could copy, and which parts should be patented, kept confidential or protected in another way.
At universities, filing before a researcher publishes can be sensible: public disclosure before filing may destroy the novelty required for patent protection in many countries.[13] The difficulty comes when filing to enable publication becomes the entire strategy. A venture may still need to refine the technology, identify the commercially important features and decide which markets justify protection. A study of Italian academic spin-outs found that patents were associated with growth, while firms with more patents obtained before formation grew less on average.[11] This is a reason to make filing decisions strategically, not an instruction to wait beyond a public disclosure or a filing deadline.
Patents are only part of the picture. Proprietary methods, manufacturing processes, data and practical know-how may be valuable trade secrets if the company can keep them confidential. Research involving technical start-ups found that trade secrets can complement patents or provide an alternative to them.[12] They are not automatically stronger: published patent applications disclose their contents, and secrecy can be lost through disclosure or independent discovery.[14, 15] Trade marks protect the signs that distinguish a company’s products or services, rather than the underlying technology.[18]
A founder must also budget beyond the initial application. Patent protection is territorial; international filing, professional advice, translations and renewal fees add cost, while enforcing rights may require further resources.[16] IP insurance is worth assessing where available, because some policies cover enforcement or defence costs, subject to the terms and exclusions.[17] The decision to patent, keep information secret or seek other protection should be made with the people responsible for the venture’s commercial future, alongside the institution that owns or controls the underlying rights.
What founders and institutions can do
For founders, my recommendation is to make the next commercial milestone explicit. Know the evidence needed to reach it, the cash required, the people who can help and the rights the business must own or license. Learn enough about finance, operations and IP to direct specialists well. Build an advisory network early, and revisit the plan whenever the science or market changes.
For universities, science councils and incubators, I would bring experienced founders into commercialisation decisions earlier. Give them a clear role alongside researchers and technology transfer staff, assess both licensing and spin-out routes, and judge progress by viable agreements and companies rather than patent counts alone. Make room for an IP plan that supports publication where possible while protecting the venture’s longer-term options.
The decision to start has no expiry date
Starting later in life gave me experience to draw on, but building six companies taught me lessons I could not have learned from advising ventures alone. The qualities that matter are not confined to an age group: resilience, resourcefulness, the willingness to learn the operational work and the judgement to ask for help. Strong science creates an opportunity. A capable founder, the right team and a workable commercial strategy give that opportunity a chance to become a sustainable business.
References
1. Azoulay P, Jones BF, Kim JD, Miranda J. Age and high-growth entrepreneurship. American Economic Review: Insights. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3386/w24489
2. Zhao H, O’Connor G, Wu J, Lumpkin GT. Age and entrepreneurial career success: A review and a meta-analysis. Journal of Business Venturing. 2021;36:106007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106007
3. Kask J, Linton G. Five principles for overcoming obstacles in deep-tech startup journeys. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-02-2023-477
4. Baier-Fuentes H, et al. Bricolage as an effective tool for the survival of owner-managed SMEs during crises. Journal of Business Research. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113608
5. Steffens P, Baker T, Davidsson P, Senyard J. When is less more? Boundary conditions of effective entrepreneurial bricolage. Journal of Management. 2023;49:1277–1311. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221077210
6. Meyer D, Colonna F, Meyer R. Success factors of deep tech incubators: A qualitative study. European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 2024. https://doi.org/10.34190/ecie.19.1.2609
7. Sallan JM, Lordan O. University technology transfer: Leveraging experiential learning and TTO’s resources. Small Business Economics. 2025;64:221–237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-024-00899-y
8. Hayter CS. Harnessing university entrepreneurship for economic growth. Economic Development Quarterly. 2013;27:18–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891242412471845
9. Cho DS, Owalla B, Ge B. Entrepreneurs in residence at the nexus of regional economy and university entrepreneurial ecosystems. Regional Studies, Regional Science. 2024;11:441–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2024.2374995
10. Aluthgama-Baduge C, et al. Facilitating entrepreneurship in higher education through practitioner integration. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-08-2023-0905
11. Ferri S, Fiorentino R, Parmentola A, Sapio A. Patenting or not? The dilemma of academic spin-off founders. Business Process Management Journal. 2019;25:84–103. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-06-2017-0163
12. Levine DS, Sichelman T. Why do startups use trade secrets? Notre Dame Law Review. 2018;94:751. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3166834
13. WIPO. How to protect inventions through patents. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/patents/protection
14. WIPO. How to protect trade secrets. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/trade-secrets/protection
15. WIPO. Why trade secrets matter to SMEs. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/business/trade-secrets
16. WIPO. Frequently asked questions: Patents. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/patents/faq_patents
17. UK Intellectual Property Office. Intellectual property insurance. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/intellectual-property-insurance
18. WIPO. Trademarks. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/trademarks
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