Clinical trials and venture tribulations: Stem cell research and the making of Vietnamese bio-entrepreneurs

Abstract

The article is concerned with biomedical technologies and the entrepreneurial ways through which these vital technologies come to life. Focusing on stem cell ‘clinical trials’ conducted in hospitals in Việt Nam, it traces the processes through which tentative experiments and uncertain results are being translated into commercial ventures. It pays particular attention to the complex institutional settings and collaborative engagements through which biomedical enterprise and markets come to be instituted. Of particular concern are network partnerships involving public bodies, policymakers and private business interests that facilitate the process of turning clinical experiments into vetted therapies for the healthcare marketplace. The article contributes to anthropological reflections on emerging bioscience economic formations that are widely termed as ‘bioeconomies’. It does so, by reorienting the analytical gaze away from understandings of economic value as inherently rooted in biological substances that hold a future promise of cure, towards ongoing processes of assembling biomedical entrepreneurial networks and turning biotechnical matters into commodities.