Competitive information gathering and analysis in biotechnology

Corporate biotechnology feeds on information about science and business dev elopments that are constantly changing and that are leveraged by all partic ipants to achieve a competitive edge. Given the vast amounts of information involved, it is important for companies to have some systematic way to gat her, filter and respond to information that is relevant to their developmen t. This can be achieved by establishing either dedicated or virtual competi tive intelligence systems, that deliver intelligence digests to decision ma kers within their companies. Other industries, such as the manufacturing an d service industries, offer useful models of such systems that they use eve ry day. These systems can be emulated by most biotechnology companies witho ut undue strain to their limited resources.