BioIndustry Ethics at KGI
KGI’s MBS program prepares students for leadership roles in the bioscience industry. Leadership demands excellence not only in science and business, but also in ethics. As bioscience leaders and as citizens, KGI graduates necessarily must address questions and controversies surrounding the use of biotechnology, and make choices “for the benefit of society.”
Since its founding in 1997, KGI has emphasized the importance of ethics and social responsibility in the bioscience industry. As the only American graduate school created exclusively for the education of leaders for the life sciences industry, KGI takes its mission very seriously.
What is BioIndustry ethics?
The Master of Bioscience (MBS) program at KGI prepares a new generation of scientifically skilled, business-minded and ethically-aware leaders — hybrids, if you will — for the bioscience industry. At KGI, bioindustry ethics itself is a hybrid discipline, a combination of two areas of applied ethics: bioethics and business ethics.
Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and its applications. The discipline encompasses ethical questions that frequently arise as a result of technological advances.
Business ethics examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial context, and the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting.
BioIndustry ethics focuses on the ethical implications of product research and development in the biosciences. Although problems from many sectors are examines, in KGI’s bioindustry ethics program, we focus on biotechnology and its attendant moral dilemmas. Moreover, the study of ethics at KGI relates to the focus tracks within the Institute’s MBS curriculum: Medical Devices and Diagnostics, Bio/Pharmaceutical Discovery and Development, Bioprocessing, the Business of Bioscience, and Clinical and Regulatory Affairs.
BioIndustry Ethics as Core Course Requirements
KGI’s MBS students are required to study ethics in both the first and second years of the program.
- KGI’s Introduction to BioIndustry Ethics course aims to provide high-level but practical information for first-year KGI masters degree students who, upon graduation, will join the ranks of bioscience leaders. The course covers key ethical theories and moral principles – in general, and as applied to select problems in bioethics and business ethics. Topics covered range from business ethics (including compliance, corporate governance and risk management); research ethics (including science authorship and inventorship; preclinical (animal research) ethics; conflicts of interest); human subjects research (including ethics and clinical data presentation; the collection and use of human biological materials); ethical issues in for-profit healthcare (including industrial research choices; pharmaceutical and device marketing and sales practices); and ethics and corporate decision-making, especially regarding product affordability and accessibility.
- Our Advanced BioIndustry Ethics requirement provides second-year MBS students with an opportunity to extend and apply their developing understanding of “bioindustry ethics” to scenarios they may well confront (and need to resolve) when they join the ranks of bioscience leaders. Building on case studies developed at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the Stanford School of Medicine, the Association of Schools of Public Health, and the Keck Graduate Institute, students will debate key moral issues in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and device industries.
