Analysis

A series of working papers on the transition from small to medium size is being derived from a joint project of Statistics Canada and the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). The project developed out of a need to better understand how and why certain businesses grow.

This analysis provides an estimate of the numbers of small companies that have, and have not, grown to medium size. It determines which industries and communities have the highest proportions of quickly growing small firms, where the firms that have not yet grown to medium size are, and how they could be supported in their growth strategy.

Theories of business growth lead us to believe that, to grow, a company needs to be innovative, conduct research and development, have access to multiple sources of funding, protect its intellectual property, engage in alliances and establish itself in a market niche. In this article, interviews with Canadian technology-based companies show that some companies manage to grow by breaking these rules.

Spin-off firms made up over 34% of the core group of firms from the 1999 biotechnology survey. They also made up over 112 of the 270 small (under 50 employees) size firms, by far the largest group of core biotechnology, and half of the human health related firms, the largest sector of biotechnology firms. Central to this paper is the question: What are the general characteristics of this sub-group of core biotechnology firms?

This, the first issue of 2002 presents an opportunity to recapitulate some of the findings that we have reported during the life of the Bulletin. In an interview, Dr. Fred Gault, Director of Statistics Canada's Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division, discusses some of the findings on innovation, e-commerce, emerging technologies, Internet use, the telecommunications industry, R&D and commercialization.

According to the report Profile of Spin-off Firms in the Biotechnology Sector, three out of every 10 companies in Canada's rapidly expanding biotechnology sector in 1999 were spin-offs. These firms, which range from corporate spin-offs to biotechnology companies created by universities and research hospitals, accounted for more than one-quarter of total revenues in 1999.

A series of working papers on the transition from small to medium size is being derived from a joint project of Statistics Canada and the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). The project developed out of a need to better understand how and why certain businesses grow.

This analysis provides an estimate of the numbers of small companies that have, and have not, grown to medium size. It determines which industries and communities have the highest proportions of quickly growing small firms, where the firms that have not yet grown to medium size are, and how they could be supported in their growth strategy.

Theories of business growth lead us to believe that, to grow, a company needs to be innovative, conduct research and development, have access to multiple sources of funding, protect its intellectual property, engage in alliances and establish itself in a market niche. In this article, interviews with Canadian technology-based companies show that some companies manage to grow by breaking these rules.

Spin-off firms made up over 34% of the core group of firms from the 1999 biotechnology survey. They also made up over 112 of the 270 small (under 50 employees) size firms, by far the largest group of core biotechnology, and half of the human health related firms, the largest sector of biotechnology firms. Central to this paper is the question: What are the general characteristics of this sub-group of core biotechnology firms?

This, the first issue of 2002 presents an opportunity to recapitulate some of the findings that we have reported during the life of the Bulletin. In an interview, Dr. Fred Gault, Director of Statistics Canada's Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division, discusses some of the findings on innovation, e-commerce, emerging technologies, Internet use, the telecommunications industry, R&D and commercialization.

According to the report Profile of Spin-off Firms in the Biotechnology Sector, three out of every 10 companies in Canada's rapidly expanding biotechnology sector in 1999 were spin-offs. These firms, which range from corporate spin-offs to biotechnology companies created by universities and research hospitals, accounted for more than one-quarter of total revenues in 1999.