Stem cell innovation in the USA: the benefits of the minimal state

Stem cell science is an emerging global industry in which nation states compete fiercely for economic advantage. Currently, the USA dominates this international competition but critics have argued that it lacks an innovation strategy to maintain its position. Strong international competition and internal policy problems may pose significant challenges to the future of US stem cell science. At the same time, the governments of the UK, China, India, Australia and Singapore are developing strategies to enhance their competitive edge within the global stem cell economy. How should the US government respond to these developments? Is a federal strategy necessary to protect the advantages of the US stem cell industries or can it be assumed that the present innovation infrastructure is sufficiently flexible and dynamic to cope with the global challenge? In this paper we address these questions through an examination of the US stem cell innovation system from the perspectives of science, society and the market.

Governing UK medical performance: A struggle for policy dominance

In the UK, policy on the governance of medical performance is characterised by a continuing struggle between state and profession for control of the agenda setting, formation and implementation stages of the policy process. Since 1998 both sides have continued to produce policies in response to highly visible political pressures but have yet to agree on how those policies should engage as they are implemented at the level of the individual practitioner. For the state, clinical governance forms the lynchpin of its drive to increase managerial control over doctors and, for the profession, revalidation is seen as the means for ensuring the quality of medical performance whilst preserving medicine's historic autonomy. This paper analyses the course of this 7-year struggle and shows how in constructing and delivering policy, state and profession draw on quite different and separate sets of institutional structures and values. As a consequence, there is an unresolved competition for dominance and little engagement between the two policy streams.

China and the global stem cell bioeconomy: an emerging political strategy?

There is a growing consensus, amongst policy analysts and scientists alike, that China is likely to play a key role in the scientific, clinical and commercial development of stem cell research. However, to date, there exist few detailed analyses of China's current investment in the field. After introducing the UK's recent political strategy on stem cell science, this article develops an in-depth discussion of the formal organization of China's research and development in the area, as well as its rapidly evolving commercial, regulatory and ethical environment. From here, we go on to assess the probability of China's emergence as a global player in the increasingly internationalized business of stem cell biomedicine.

Patenting, morality and human embryonic stem cell science: bioethics and cultural politics in Europe

As the recent experience of the European Patent Office graphically demonstrates, there is an inherent political tension between the individual ownership rights necessary for the operation of an international market in human embryonic stem cell science and the communal values of the many cultures in which such markets operate. This report examines the basis of the conflict between patenting and morality at national and international levels, the manifestation of those tensions in European patenting policy, and the contribution of bioethics to the attempt by European institutions to develop a governance response.

Stem cell science in India: emerging economies and the politics of globalization

The globalization of stem cell science is increasingly being shaped by the emerging economies of the Asia/Pacific region. Undaunted and unhampered by the more established views of the commercialization of science, countries such as India are constructing models of innovation, policies and patterns of investment that challenge such orthodoxies. This report examines the position of India within the globalization of stem cell science, its adjustments to the developing knowledge market in this field and its particular contribution to the likely future of this promising bioeconomy.