Biotech & Pharma

Biotech and Pharma refer to the commercial sectors that develop, manufacture, and market products that use or intervene in biological processes. Multinational pharmaceutical companies have invested heavily in biotechnologies as a potential source of new drugs and devices. The biotech and pharma industries often oppose public oversight and regulation, despite their involvement in socially and ethically controversial products and activities. Because their involvement blurs the lines between private enterprise and public interest, biotech’s activities must be transparent and their interests acknowledged.

Biopolitical Times

We were shocked — shocked — to learn that 23andMe is cashing in on its customers’ spit. $3.5 billion, the company is worth, they say, now that it’s going public. That is an awful lot of $99 gene tests! Except that the business model is not, and never has been, about cash flow from individual customers. No, the big money is in leasing out genetic data to pharmaceutical companies and other researchers.

Forgive us, just this once: We told...

Biopolitical Times
Biotech Juggernaut: Hope, Hype, and Hidden Agendas of Entrepreneurial BioScience (Routledge, 2019) documents the intensifying effort of bioentrepreneurs to apply genetic engineering technologies to the human species and to extend the commercial reach of synthetic biology. CGS spoke with authors Tina Stevens and Stuart Newman about the stories that led them to write Biotech Juggernaut and how they see this phenomenon playing out in 2019.
Biopolitical Times
Writing in the pages of The New York Times, Harvard Business School professor Debora Spar argues that a coming technological breakthrough – in vitro gametogenesis, or gametes manufactured from ordinary body cells – will herald a “revolution” that will “dismantle completely the reproductive structure of heterosexuality.”
Biopolitical Times
When Jesse was 18, he decided to volunteer for a gene therapy trial at the University of Pennsylvania. He died four days later.
A wall displays letters " ATCG" in various colors.

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A mail-in kit, containing four long cotton swabs, placed in an envelope, with place holders for each cotton swab.

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A hammer is shown in the middle, with several nails attached to a wooden board. The nails are dented and bent.

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A pregnant woman of color sits at a bench and table, looking down. Behind her, there is a lake and a tree trunk.

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Surrounded by a darkened vignette, a doctor stands looking down towards the camera against two overhead lights. It is as if the camera or viewer is undergoing surgery.

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A person suited in bioharzard gear, examines a sample of corn in a field.

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A laboratory scientist, in protective gear, holds a pippette to transfer samples from one test tube to several other test tubes on a rack.

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A white male reads over a pile of genetic testing kit contents on a kitchen stove top.

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