Abstract
Technology ventures are likely to experience adverse events during their lives, but what are the impacts of these events on these ventures and what firm characteristics are likely to mitigate the impacts of these events? This study examines the impacts of a specific adverse event, the failure in of a drug in clinical trials, on a population of public biotechnology firms. We study the impact of the adverse event on the value of the ventures and the ability of firm characteristics to mitigate the influence of adverse events.