Contemporary culture abounds with stories about how new technologies are radically altering human existence. In many respects it seems intuitively obvious that there is nothing new in this, and that new techniques for doing things change social relationships. Yet there is something strange about the most recent variations of how the social impact of new technologies are understood. New biotechnologies in particular are argued to have changed our daily lives so much so that what we take as the most fundamental features of human experience can no longer be assumed. The argument that new...

Promising new developments in biomedical technology such as stem cell science are widely endorsed by governments keen to reduce spiralling healthcare costs, clinicians focused on patient care, and patients demanding revolutionary new treatments. Commercializing the stem cell sciences offers a comparative analysis of the commercial methods adopted in the global stem cell industries. It seeks to establish whether there is an optimum commercial model and to examine what emerging companies can learn from their predecessors. Following an introduction to stem cell sciences and the problems involved...