The Making of “Social” Genomic Medicine: Philanthropy and Biovalue in Mexico

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

Abstract

In what has been reported as the largest philanthropic investment in scientific research ever made in Mexico or Latin America, in 2010 and 2013 the Carlos Slim Foundation—an organization funded by Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim and likely the most powerful non-state actor shaping the conditions of social welfare in Mexico today—invested $139 million in a genomic medicine research initiative. The initiative aimed to analyze Latin American genomes to discover genetic drivers of key diseases affecting the region, focusing especially on type 2 diabetes. Simultaneously, the philanthropy and Carlos Slim helped to found Patia Biopharma, a biotech startup intended to translate findings from this research into medical technologies, promising to transform health in Mexico and the region via “preventive, personalized and social medical genomics”. The philanthropy would subsequently use its influence to encourage the uptake across Mexico’s national health system of Patia Biopharma’s test for the detection of type 2 diabetes genetic predisposition, beginning with a large-scale implementation trail. This paper traces the development and launch to market of this test, the ways in which these philanthro-entrepreneural actors are accumulating biovalue through it (beyond its subsidized sale), and how it is being mobilized in pursuit of a tech-centered vision for health-system reform (and, more broadly, the personalization of public health). The case illustrates the power of philanthropic organizations in contemporary political economies of health in the global south and raises key concerns at the intersection of post-genomic innovation and the imaginaries underpinning health system reform.

Author

• Emily Elizabeth Vasquez, Columbia University