Valuation of Licensing Agreements in Agriculture Biotechnology

Abstract

As demand for agricultural commodities expands throughout the world, competitors are finding it advantageous to form strategic partnerships. Firms seek to collaborate in an organized effort to advance technology as quickly as possible. This thesis develops a discounted cash flow model embedded with real options and Monte Carlo simulation to value the most common rights, restrictions, and options found in agriculture biotechnology license agreements. Due to the complexity and uncertainty involved in the incubation of new technology, the incorporation of flexibility provided through real options is paramount to the analysis. Implications from changes in critical variables are analyzed as to how they may affect decision making. This thesis establishes an extensive background and analysis of licensing intellectual property in agriculture biotechnology, valuation techniques for intellectual property licenses, as well as tactics for quantifying specific terms. Thus creating a framework for the valuation of agriculture biotechnology licensing agreements.