Promissory Policy and the Making of Platform Biocapitalism: Towards a Political Economy of UK Genomics

• In Event: Innovation, Biocapital and the Making of Post-Genomic Medicine - I

Abstract

The UK government has supported a massive programme of investment in large scale genetics and genomics over the last 20 years, claiming that this will bring both medical benefits and stimulate a new bioeconomy. This is most apparent in the funding of Genomics England, the largest biomedical research project ever undertaken, and the roll-out of whole genome sequencing to 1 million people. However, much of the justification for this investment is made on the grounds of what benefits genomics will bring in the future. This is the latest in a long series of hopes associated with these technologies. A critical review of policy over this period will demonstrate that many of these promises have been either forgotten or reframed as successes, but few have been realised in practice. The paper explores the extent to which the imaginaries associated with personalised medicine, genomics and the bioeconomy are continuously made and remade so that we are left permanently in a state of becoming, but never actually arriving at a final destination. In making this argument the paper will draw on Jens Beckert’s work in economic sociology that shows how expectations are a central feature of capitalist dynamics. In contrast to the idea that future-oriented policy can be made accountable through evidence-based evaluation, it will be suggested that an alternative strategy based on the creation of counter-imaginaries may be more successful in steering emerging technocience.

Author

• Paul Martin, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield