Measuring "Start-Up Readiness" of Scientific Research-Based Start-Ups Using Analysis of Citation Networks: Case Study of CRISPR-Cas9

Recent experiences related to scientific research-based start-ups that launched initial public offerings (IPOs) without maturity of functional technologies and intellectual property suggest that the concept of "start-up readiness" can be defined as an earlier-applied criterion than "technology readiness." This study was conducted to show that emergence of a scientific research domain and its central researchers signal "start-up readiness." We analyzed the centralities of researchers, whether these researchers are start-up founders, and the timing of their founding and venture capital funding. This case study explored the biotechnology research field of genome editing, CRISPR-Cas9, which has generated start-ups that completed IPOs in 2016. We constructed cited-and-citing author networks based on paper citation networks, calculated centralities for each author, checked if authors of high centralities are founders, and chronologically compared the centralities and the start-ups' founding and venture capital funding. Results show that authors with higher combined centralities have higher rates of being founders, with potential to let their start-ups raise initial VC funding, similarly to the number of citations, a conventional bibliometric index. Furthermore, the centralities can serve as better indexes of scientists' potential to become founders, reflecting their "start-up readiness," because the centralities might encompass a wider range of potential founders.