PerspectiveFeatureThe publishing and patenting strategies of successful university spinoffs in the biopharmaceutical industry

•Patenting and publishing activities of biopharmaceutical firms are analyzed.•Knowledge disclosure strategies of university spinoffs (USOs) differ from other firms.•USOs tend to gain reputation through publications with high scientific quality.•Other firms tend to gain reputation through patents with high commercial quality.

Firms in the biopharmaceutical industry send signals to investors about the value of their knowledge by disclosing it in the form of patents and publications. In this way, they can gain reputation even before having products on the market. This paper compares the patenting and publishing activities of university spinoffs with other biopharmaceutical firms. The findings suggest that successful university spinoffs and successful other firms (not university spinoffs) tend to follow different knowledge disclosure strategies. Whereas successful university spinoffs tend to emphasize the scientific value of their knowledge and gain reputation through their high-quality publications, other successful firms tend to emphasize the commercial value of their knowledge and gain reputation through high-quality patents.