The Turkish Biotechnology System: Functioning or Malfunctioning?

Method

Due to the difficulty of reaching public data on technology based firms in Turkey, direct data collection through interviews is utilized. The starting point in identifying Turkish biotech firms was two previous biotechnology studies conducted in Turkey (Basaga & Cetindamar, 2000 and 2006). This study updates these former studies which identified 50 and 90 biotechnology-related firms, respectively. The update is carried out in 2010 by searching associations and Internet addresses of firms and newspapers. For example, Biotechnology Association has a database of biotechnology firms, but some of the firms in the list are not directly involved in biotech activities. Therefore, after a detailed analysis of each firm one-by-one, an updated list was formed involving 140 firms. The final list dropped to 120 when we called firms to get appointment for interviews and found that 20 of them went into bankruptcy.