Biobank Economics and the “Commercialization Problem”

Authors

  • Andrew Turner Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK.
  • Clara Dallaire-Fortier
  • Madeleine J Murtagh Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4245/sponge.v7i1.19555

Abstract

The economic aspects of biobanking are intertwined with the social and scientific aspects. We describe two problems that structure the discussion about the economics of biobanking and which illustrate this intertwining. First, there is a ‘sustainability problem’ about how to maintain biobanks in the long term. Second, and representing a partial response to the first problem, there is a ‘commercialisation problem’ about how to deal with the voluntary altruistic relationship between participants and biobanks, and the potential commercial relationships that a biobank may form. Social scientists have argued that the commercialisation problem is inadequate as a way to construct the multiple tensions that biobanks must negotiate. We agree that the commercialisation problem is an inadequate framework; turning to alternative accounts of bioeconomy, we suggest that contemporary consideration of the economics of biobanking primarily in terms of participants and their bodily tissue may reproduce the very commodification of science that these scholars critique. We suggest that an alternative conception of the economics of biobanking beyond the logics of commodification, which may thereby allow broader questions about the social and economic conditions and consequences of biobanks to be posed.

Author Biographies

Andrew Turner, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK.

Andrew Turner is a research associate in the Health Sciences department at the University of Leicester, UK.

Clara Dallaire-Fortier

Clara Dallaire-Fortier is an undergraduate student of economics at McGill University, Montreal. During 2012, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK.

Madeleine J Murtagh, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK.

Madeleine Murtagh is Professor in Social Studies of Population Health Science, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK. Her research comprises social studies of transdiciplinary bioscience, biomedical and public health communities of practice, bringing a social 'lens' to knowledge generation and translation in population science and technology, particularly in relation to population biobanks, birth cohort studies and randomised controlled trials. This research focuses on three areas of work: The Data Economy: data sharing and data access in the bioknowledge economy; Epistemic Values in data governance, interpretation and knowledge-making; and, Collaborative Intelligence in the development of bioknowledge communities of practice and stakeholder engagement.

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Published

2013-09-09

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013): Economic Aspects of Science

Section

Focused Discussion

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