Paper info

How Can a Biotech Tool Reveal what is Going on under the Surface of Three Hyped Biotech Regions? The Embedding of ÄKTApilot in the US, China and Taiwan

Alexandra Waluszewski , Enrico Baraldi , Tommy Shih and Åse Linné

The paper was published at the 21st IMP-conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 2005.

What can a biotech tool, ÄKTApilot™, supplied by GE Healthcare Uppsala, tell us about its users anduse context? And what can the embedding of this biotech device in three substantially different usecontexts, the US, China and Taiwan, tell us about how a science-related resource gets an economicvalue? Whereas many studies of biotech are concerned with the provision of science, this paperfocuses on the utilization of science-related resources. We investigate how the focal biotech tool isembedded in three use contexts in order to shed light on what goes on under the surface of thesehyped biotech regions. The utilization of ÄKTApilot is in fact an indicator of the state of advancementin pharmaceutical R&D. We start from the resource interfaces that embed this biotech tool within amicro-context of use, but we also investigate systematically the traces and the effects in such microinteractionsof the broader macro-context. Because of different interplays between micro-interactionsand macro factors, ÄKTApilot has been embedded very differently in the three countries: it is moststrongly embedded in the US context, but much less so in the Chinese and especially the Taiwanesecontext. We finally discuss the possibility to apply policy recipes in order to create an “instantindustrialisation”, i.e. to speed up not only the supply, but also the utilization of science-relatedresources. However, the importance of micro-interactions in creating value from science suggests theinherent limits of much managerial and policy wisdom.