Samenvatting

This paper analyzes the internationalization strategies of biotech firms in the Netherlands. We find that many of these firms are born internationals in the sense that from their inception they are actively engaged in international cooperation. However, we find that the nature of potential intellectual property and technology has a strong influence on the drivers for the internationalization process. In the theory part of the paper we connect IP strategies and technology to separate classes of business models which subsequently translate in dominant internationalization strategies. By presenting case study evidence for the Dutch biotech industry, in the empirical part of the paper we show that technological characteristics explain the variation of internationalization strategies across firms.