Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Financialization and its Impact on the Nature of Knowledge Production in Bioeconomy


Affiliations
1 Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru 560 072, India
 

The growth of medical biotechnology (MBT) globally over the last few decades has brought to light several significant changes in various aspects of society. The most prominent impacts were witnessed in the organization of industrial activity, and the nature of knowledge production. With innovation occupying the centre stage in the creatively destructive economies, financial actors and institutions became important in fuelling innovations. Such dominance of financialization has in turn led to the constitution of several new relationships among various actors and the emergence of a new business culture. This constitution of the ‘new’ is also a result of the active involvement of the state through a favourable policy environment. In all of these happenings, a question that is widely debated is, ‘how is the nature of knowledge production impacted due to the emergence of a new business culture in the current innovationled economies?’ This communication delineates the emergence of this new business culture and its relationships, specifically in the context of MBT, and how those changes have impacted the nature of knowledge production.

Keywords

Bioeconomy, Financialization, Knowledge Production, Medical Biotechnology, Patents.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Fumagalli, A. and Lucarelli, S., Valorization and financialization in cognitive biocapitalism. Invest. Manage. Financ. Innov., 2011, 8(1), 88–103.

  • Birch, K., Rethinking value in the bio-economy: finance, assetization, and the management of value. Sci. Technol. Hum. Values, 2017, 42(3), 460–490.

  • Rajan, K. S., Value, Politics and Knowledge in Global Biomedicine, Duke University Press, Cambridge, 2017.

  • Pisano, G. P., Can science be a business? Lessons form biotech. Harvard Bus. Rev., 2006, 1–12.

  • Pisano, G. P., The evolution of science based business – innovating how we innovate. Harvard Business School Working Paper, 2010.

  • Huges, S. S., Genetech: The Beginings of Biotech, The University of Chicago Press, London, UK, 2011

  • Mirowski, P., The modern commercialisation of science is a passel of Ponzi schemes. Soc. Epistemol., 2012, 26(3–4), 285–310.

  • Huggett, B., Bringing up baby. Nature Biotechnol., 2018, 36(5), 393–401.

  • Morrison, C., and Lähteenmäki, R.., Public biotech in 2016 – The numbers. Nature Biotechno., 2017, 35(7), 623–629.

  • Mirowski, P., Science Mart: Privatising American Science, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2011.

  • Dimasi, J. A., Grabowski, H. G. and Hansen, R. W., Innovation in pharmaceutical R&D: New estimates of R&D costs. J. Health Econom., 2016, 47, 20–33.

  • Rajan, K. S., Biocapital: The Constitution of Post Genomic Life, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA, 2006.

  • Blumenthal, D., Academic–industrial relationships in the life sciences. N. Engl. J. Med., 2003, 349(25), 2452–2459.

  • Blumenthal, D., Gluck, M., Louis, S. K. and Wise, D., Industrial support of university research in biotechnology. Science, 1986, 271(4735), 242–246.

  • Rajan, K. S., Introduction: the capitalisation of life and liveliness of capital. In Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics and Governance in Global Markets, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA, 2012.

  • American Association for the Advancement Science, 2018; https:// www.aaas.org/programs/r-d-budget-and-policy/research-science-and-engineering-discipline (accessed on 15 February 2019).

  • Huggett, B., Biotech’s wellspring: the health of private biotech in 2013. Nature Biotechnol., 2014, 32(5), 428–435.

  • Huggett, B., Top US universities, institutes for life sciences in 2015. Nature Biotechnol., 2017, 35(3), 203.

  • AUTM, AUTM University Licensing Survey – 2015, Association of University Technology Managers, Washington DC, USA, 2016.

  • Roth, C. R., From Alchemy to IPO: The Business of Biotechnology, Peresus Publishing, Cambridge, UK, 2000.

  • Cooper, M., Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era, University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, USA, 2008.

  • Krimsky, S., Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profite Corrupted Biomedical Research?, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Maryland, USA 2003.

  • Lehman, V., Doing Good by Doing Well? The Political Economy of the Medical Biotechnology Industry in the United States, UMI Dissertation Publishing, New York, USA, 2010.

  • Feisee, L., Biotech in Northeast Ohio Conference – the role of the private sector in biotechnology: research and development. Health Matrix: J. Law Med., 2002, 12(2), 357–365.

  • Loeppky, R., History, technology, and the capitalist state: the comparative political economy of biotechnology and genomics. Rev. Int. Polit. Econ., 2005, 12(2), 264–286.

  • Merton, R., The normative structure of science. In The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA, 1973.

  • Bernal, J. D., Science in History, Penguin Books, vol. 1, 1954.

  • Lewontin, R. C., Biology as Ideology, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1995.

  • Etzkowitz, H., MIT and Rise of Entrepreneurial Science, Routledge, London, UK, 2002.

  • Kleinman, L. D. and Vallas, S. P., Science, capitalism and the rise of ‘knowledge worker’: the changing structure of knowledge production in United States. Theory Soc., 2001, 451–492.

  • Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G., Academic Capitalism and New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 2004.

  • Hounshell, D. A., Edison and the pure science ideal. Science, 1980, 207(4431), 612–617.


Abstract Views: 155

PDF Views: 65




  • Financialization and its Impact on the Nature of Knowledge Production in Bioeconomy

Abstract Views: 155  |  PDF Views: 65

Authors

P. Omkar Nadh
Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru 560 072, India

Abstract


The growth of medical biotechnology (MBT) globally over the last few decades has brought to light several significant changes in various aspects of society. The most prominent impacts were witnessed in the organization of industrial activity, and the nature of knowledge production. With innovation occupying the centre stage in the creatively destructive economies, financial actors and institutions became important in fuelling innovations. Such dominance of financialization has in turn led to the constitution of several new relationships among various actors and the emergence of a new business culture. This constitution of the ‘new’ is also a result of the active involvement of the state through a favourable policy environment. In all of these happenings, a question that is widely debated is, ‘how is the nature of knowledge production impacted due to the emergence of a new business culture in the current innovationled economies?’ This communication delineates the emergence of this new business culture and its relationships, specifically in the context of MBT, and how those changes have impacted the nature of knowledge production.

Keywords


Bioeconomy, Financialization, Knowledge Production, Medical Biotechnology, Patents.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv118%2Fi8%2F1296-1303