The Emergence of an Entitlement Framework for Stored Tissue - Elements and Implications of an Escalating Conflict in Sweden

Abstract

In 1999, a biotech company was established in Västerbotten County, in Sweden, and given what was termed ‘all commercial rights’ to a major research biobank containing blood samples of the majority of the adult population. It was predicted that the company would place the otherwise rather marginalised community at the centre of international life-science research. International investments failed to appear, however. During the spring of 2002, internal disagreements concerning dispositional rights in the biobank resulted in court appeals, critical newspaper articles and, more informally, mutual threats among parties with different interests in the biobank material. In this article, it is argued that scrutiny of this conflict provides a chance to understand the emergence of delineated entitlements in material contained in Swedish biobanks.