清华大学科学社会学与政策学沙龙第89期

题目：全球干细胞疗法市场的政治经济学（The political economy of the global stem cell therapy market）
报告人：Brian Salter教授（伦敦大学国王学院政治经济学系副系主任、研究主管，全球生物政治研究中心主任）
主持人：王程韡博士（清华大学科学技术与社会研究所讲师）
时间：2013年10月31日（星期四）15:00～17:00
地点：新斋335室（清华大学图书馆北侧）
主办单位：清华大学科学技术与社会研究所

演讲人简介：
Professor of Politics, Director of Research and Deputy Head of the Department of Political Economy, Director of the Global Biopolitics Research Centre, King’s College London. A political scientist specialising in the analysis of public policy, he has studied the political forces at work in the policy arenas of education, health and, most recently, the life sciences. Here his work focuses on the political economy of new health technologies and the international governance issues associated with the global competition between nation states for innovative advantage in the knowledge economies of the future.  Currently he is exploring the political challenges posed by the emergence of China, India and Brazil as the 'Rising Powers' in the global biomedical economy.

Closely associated with his academic work is his role as policy adviser to government, funding agencies, professional and international bodies. Professor Salter has been a member of the UK National Stem Cell Network (UKNSCN) committee 2006-2011; member of Ethical Review Panels for 6th and 7th EU Framework Programme (FP6 and FP7); adviser to the General Medical Council; and a member of the Review Panel of the ESRC Genomics Centres.

报告简介：
Innovation in the life sciences in general and stem cell science in particular is driven by an interlinked set of global markets with many and various governance arrangement at national and transnational levels. Predominant among these markets are research funding, scientific labour, research materials, clinical labour (subjects for clinical experimentation and clinical trials), venture capital, patenting and, last but not least, health consumers. It is the operation of the latter market which, in the case of stem cell science, has provoked controversy across the globe in countries such as South Korea, Thailand, China, India, the US, Japan and Italy as the demand from health consumers for treatment of diseases as diverse as spinal cord injury, neuro degenerative disorders, diabetes mellitus, heart disease and Lyme Disease has collided with the capacity of medical science to deliver innovative stem cell therapies. Global health consumer demand for stem cell therapies is vibrant but the supply of treatments from the conventional science-based model of innovation is small and unlikely to increase in the near future.  At the same time, models of medical innovation have emerged that can respond to the demand, often employing a transnational value chain to deliver the product.  Much of the commentary has approached the issue from a supply side perspective, demonstrating the extent to which national and transnational regulation fails to impose what are regarded as appropriate standards on the ‘illicit’ supply of stem cell therapies.  In contrast, this paper presents a political economic analysis with a strong demand side perspective, arguing that the problem of what is termed ‘stem cell tourism’ is embedded in the demand-supply relationship of the health consumer market and its engagement with different types of stem cell therapy innovation.  To be meaningful, discussions of regulation must recognize that analysis or risk being sidelined by a market which ignores their often wishful thinking.