Insulina i upadek wieży z kości słoniowej. Rzecz o zmieniających się uwarunkowaniach innowacyjności

Abstract

Insulin and a fall of the ivory tower. On the changing determinants of innovation The centennial of the discovery of insulin and the fortieth anniversary of the introduction of human insulin into the American market provide a good opportunity to reflect on the circumstances surrounding innovation in high technology branches of industry. The subject of that reflection is the possibility of applying the model of technical, organisational and institutional co-evolution, formulated by Johan Peter Murmann in relation to the artificial dyes industry in nineteenth-century Germany, United Kingdom and United States, to the history of the pharmaceutical industry. An analysis of the evolution of relations between scientists and physicians on the one hand and the pharmaceutical industry on the other leads to the conclusion that the Murmann model must be supplemented with reflection on changes in the role of medical codes of ethics and on the understanding of the social role of science. The achievement of the current status quo in the cooperation between the medical profession and the industry has been possible thanks to the liberalisation of the principles of ethical codes, which have been transformed from a set of strict standards into just a set of guidelines to help physicians in their everyday practice. On the other hand, the industry has gradually adapted its marketing strategies to the requirements of physicians by divulging the composition of medicines, abandoning direct advertising to patients and introducing a new strategy known as scientific marketing. As far as scientists are concerned, the consent to the commercialisation of research results was the consequence of a change in the understanding of the social role of science. In the twentieth century science became one of the many professions pursued to earn a living and scientists no longer came to regard themselves as a special group selflessly explaining the rules of the natural world. It is unfair to blame biotechnology for this shift, as the processes of “disenchantment” of science were well under way before biotechnology was born in the mid-1970s.