Untitled Document

from BioIndustry Ethics

by David L. Finegold, Cecile M Bensimon, Abdallah S. Daar, Margaret L. Eaton, Beatrice Godard, Bartha Maria Knoppers, Jocelyn Mackie and Peter A. Singer. Elsevier Academic Press (2005)

---------The genesis of the topic of bioscience-business ethics is the realization that DNA knowledge can be applied to produce breakthrough medical, agricultural, and other products. Just over 50 years ago, James Watson and Francis Crick unraveled the structure of DNA; 2 decades later, the first two biotechnology companies, Cetus and Genentech, were founded. Since then, there have been great advances in biotechnology: in the 1980s, the first biotech drugs reached the market, and in the1990s, the first genetically engineered crops became commercially available. These new industries and products are beginning to have a dramatic impact on human health and agriculture. We are now well into a biotechnology revolution that has transformed both the ability to generate medical and agricultural products and the industries that produce these products.

Physics dominated the first half of the 20th century; the 21st century has already been dubbed the age of biology. (1) The sequencing of the genomes of the major crop plants, many animals, pathogens, and humans has laid the groundwork for a new, genetically driven approach to medicine, agriculture, nutrition, and many other fields. Biotechnology has so invaded the methodologies of the traditional medical, industrial, and agricultural companies that, as an industry, they collectively deserve a new name—what we are calling the bioscience industry. There are still relatively few major biotechnology drugs on the market, but the number of new biological drugs in clinical trials now exceeds the number of novel, small molecule, chemical-based drugs in development. And despite the European controversy surrounding their introduction, biotechnology crops (now called genetically modified, or GM, crops) are growing at a rapid rate, already accounting for a majority of the soybeans and cotton grown in the United States, with global sales projected to reach $25 billion by 2010. The potential impact of new biotechnologies extends well beyond health and agriculture to a variety of other industrial and environmental implications that may account for up to 50% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of world economies by 2050. (2)

There is another reason to group and rename the industry that is producing these new biotechnology products. Their very nature raises such profound social and ethical issues that managers in these companies now have to address concerns emanating from the relatively new field of bioethics, as well as the older field of medical ethics. Looking back, there were hints that this phenomenon was coming. In the 20th century, public concerns about safety and misuse caused major setbacks in the development of nuclear power and recombinant DNA technology that presaged similar attacks against genetically modified crops. Applying lessons from these three examples makes it plausible to predict that public concerns about issues such as cloning, stem cell research, genetic privacy, human genetic enhancement, and antibioterrorism technology can pose a greater risk to the future of the bioscience industry than the technologic challenges themselves.

Given this potential risk, some bioscience company managers have begun to address the social and ethical consequences of producing biotechnology products. These efforts are driven in part by an interest in protecting companies from harm. But other motivations also are at play, driven by the realization that the role of corporations in the use of biotechnology products is so vital that failure to address ethical concerns risks stalling scientific advances and wasting the potential for building a healthier society. Companies at the forefront of incorporating biomedical ethics into product development decision making are plowing new ground; there is, as yet, no well-established body of scholarship to guide them.

[BioIndustry Ethics] aims to begin to close this gap.

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1 Shahi G. BioBusiness in Asia. London: Prentice Hall; 2004.

2 Ibid.