Managing risk and reputation in the biotechnology industry

Abstract

One of the most important assets any company has is its reputation -damage to a company's reputation will reduce its ability to create value. Owing partly to intense media coverage and intense public interest, and partly to market volatility and the vagaries of the clinical trials process, biotechnology companies face risks to their reputation not always faced by other industries. In this paper some of these risks are highlighted, and the best practices that can be used to manage them are discussed. Drawing upon research conducted by Andersen over a three-year period and involving 10,000 organisations, the authors provide insights into how companies in many sectors are creating value through their tangible and intangible assets. The value dynamics framework is applied to life science companies in order to demonstrate that reputation damage is a key risk that needs to be managed.