I am in a similar situation as Sheldon, except I’m interested in the HR side of business. Having just finished an HR degree, I was surprised to learn that work is outsourced. I wonder how and what you can limit to outsource, and how feasible is it to establish a QC infrastructure within your personnel. If you outsource, would it still be financially feasible to hire a small technical team/person?

Small biotech companies typically outsource some facets of their operation: for example, very few have in-house legal counsel, particularly at the early stage; aspects of the HR function (e.g.compensation/benefits design, senior recruiting) are often outsourced to consultants; pre-clinical and clinical testing, regulatory affairs, even manufacturing are frequently outsourced to firms that specialize in these areas. Decisions to outsource are typically made based upon financial resources, availability of specialized expertise, physical plant requirements (e.g. containment) and/or the exit strategy of investors. It would be unusual for an early stage company to build its own animal facility, so animal testing is routinely outsourced.

Outsourcing does require that someone within the organization take responsibility for managing the external resources to ensure the best results. You recruit a CRO (Clinical Research Organization) in much the same way you would recruit a clinical team: interview the representative; check references from other clients of the CRO; visit and inspect the facility; and so on. Once you have hired the CRO, management consists of scheduling regular meetings and update calls, reviewng results, requesting additional information/clarification, and so on. You are not responsible for tactical HR management of the CRO’s employees, but it is reasonable to review their qualifications as you would those of any consultant you might hire. It is quite common to hire an “actual” employee (sometimes on a contract basis) to manage relationships with the “virtual” technical team.

It is a good idea to plan outsourcing with care: depending on particular circumstances, it can be less expensive and more efficient to hire the expertise in-house either on a full time or contract basis. (For example, if you are recruiting a large number of mid- to senior-level employees, I would suggest hiring a contract recruiter in-house.)

HR in start up companies is almost always done by the founding management team and/or an administrative assistant. In the rare cases that a company hires an HR professional in-house at the outset, that person typically is responsible for other functions as well: communications, facilities, IT, general administration. It is common for HR to be part of the finance department in early stage companies.

If you Google “virtual biotech companiesâ€? you’ll find a plethora of material on this subject.