Abstract
On March 14th 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair jointly announced their commitment to making all raw genetic data free. The next day the stock markets reacted to this apparent threat to intellectual property rights and patent protection by putting corporate biotech stock prices into a nosedive, losing 20 per cent or more, and The Financial Times editorial chastened the pair for taking a blatantly populist position for political gain. (The Financial Times, March 16 2000, p. 10) These reactions to a single announcement point to what many believe to be the core issue for biotechnology policy — the ability of governments to navigate the treacherous waters between economic growth and ethics.
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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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de la Mothe, J. (2000). Biotechnology and Policy in an Innovation System: Strategy, Stewardship and Sector Promotion. In: De La Mothe, J., Niosi, J. (eds) The Economic and Social Dynamics of Biotechnology. Economics of Science, Technology and Innovation, vol 21. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4323-7_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4323-7_14
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