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 DNA spit kit is shown, featuring a container and a specimen bag.

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Close up photo of a hand clock.

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A young mother holds a daughter with their heads gently touching. Their backs are away from the camera.

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Someone puts a coin into a piggy bank that has bandages on its side. A doctor's stethoscope surrounds the piggy bank.

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Close up image of three double helixes positioned diagonally, and subtly highlighted.

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A woman of color holds a circular glass object in her opened left palm.

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Two Q-tip swabs are vertically positioned next to each other. Blurred in the background, there is a container filled with other q-tips.

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An illustrated graphic of a side-view of a human head. Their brain appears with six small double helix icons on the side.

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