The workshop will take place at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Brighton on 25-26 May 2017, and bring together approximately 30 scholars – mostly drawn from International Relations, Anthropology and Sociology. It will be structured around four roundtable sessions, each focusing on different aspects of the rise of pharmaceuticals as instruments of global health policy. The roundtable sessions will be kicked off with 4-5 brief presentations on some of the questions outlined below followed by an open discussion.
Roundtable I: The Pharmaceuticalisation of Society and New Visions of Life
The first roundtable explores the social and epistemological context in which pharmaceuticals have emerged as key instruments of global health policy. There has been significant interest, especially from the disciplines of Sociology and Anthropology, in the ‘pharmaceuticalisation’ of society, broadly defined as ‘the translation or transformation of human conditions, capabilities and capacities into opportunities for pharmaceutical intervention’. Other scholars have also explored how new molecular conceptions of life are increasing our capacities to control and manipulate life at molecular scale – shaping politics, society and governance in new ways. The first roundtable will thus explore how these trends are implicated and reflected in the increasing use of pharmaceuticals as policy instruments. It will pursue questions such as:
- To what extent is the focus on pharmaceuticals in global health linked to wider epistemic shifts in our understanding of biological life?
- How are pharmaceuticalisation processes shaping – and also shaped by – the field of global health?
- What are the new tensions that arise specifically around a molecular and pharmaceutical biopolitics?
Chair: Catherine Will, University of Sussex
Participants:
- Stefan Elbe, University of Sussex
- Julian Reid, University of Lapland
- Limor Samimian-Darash, Hebrew University
Roundtable II: Pharmaceuticals, Health and Security
The second roundtable explores the dynamics between the securitization of health and the increasing focus on pharmaceuticals as instruments of security policy. Governments around the world have come to conceive of certain health issues – such as pandemics, bioterrorism, and more recently also antimicrobial resistance – as threats to national and international security. As a consequence, they have invested billions in the development of ‘medical countermeasures’ and in some cases amassed vast pharmaceutical stockpiles. A rapidly expanding literature, mostly in International Relations and Security Studies, has analysed how the framing of health issues as security threats can both benefit and distort the politics of health, and identified some of the wider political repercussions of the rise of health security. Yet, there has been comparatively little work on the use of technologies in health security. The second roundtable will pursue questions such as:
- What role do the rise of global health security considerations play in intensifying the recourse to pharmaceutical solutions in global health policy?
- What happens in practice when the logics of pharmaceuticalisation and security collide?
- Is the pharmaceutical turn in global health security indicative of wider shift in our understanding of security?
Chair: Simon Rushton, University of Sheffield
Participants:
- Christian Enemark, Southampton University
- Rebecca Hester, Virginia Tech
- Kendall Hoyt, Dartmouth Medical School
- Christopher Long, University of Sussex
Roundtable III: Global Governance for Health or Pharmaceuticals?
The third roundtable interrogates the governance implications of using pharmaceuticals as instruments of health and security policies. Much of the expertise and technological know-how of pharmaceutical development resides with private, for-profit companies. Yet, returns on investment in medicines and vaccines that are required to improve global health are often too small to trigger commercial investment. To incentivize industry collaboration novel governance arrangements, such as public-private partnerships, have been created. Furthermore, the use of pharmaceuticals as policy instruments requires the creation of new regulatory structures. For instance, concerns around drug safety have fueled the creation of the WHO Prequalification Programme. Furthermore, special procedures have been created for the use of unapproved medicines and vaccines in health emergencies. The roundtable will discuss questions arising from these developments, such as:
- How has the focus on pharmaceuticals shaped the character of global health governance?
- What tensions emerge between the global governance for health and the global governance for pharmaceuticals?
- Is the use of pharmaceuticals in global health policy indicative of a wider technological shift in global governance?
Chair: Gorik Ooms, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Participants:
- Tine Hanrieder, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
- Joao Nunes, University of York
- Alexandra Phelan, Georgetown University
- Jeremy Youde, Australian National University
Roundtable IV: The Political Economy of Global Health in the Era of Pharmaceuticalisation
The final roundtable explores how the postulated ‘pharmaceutical turn’ in global health governance has affected the underlying political economy. Pharmaceutical companies now routinely engage with public and (non-for profit) private players in developing and implementing strategies to improve access to medicines and vaccines in low- and middle-income countries. Simultaneously, however, many of the same companies continue to lobby for the global strengthening of intellectual property protection. The political economy underlying global health governance is furthermore shaped by the quest for low-cost production of medicines and vaccines. This has turned the spotlight on pharmaceutical companies from emerging markets, such as China and India, as both ‘partners’ in public-private governance and players in the increasingly important South-South trade. The roundtable will look at questions such as:
- How has the growing political demand for pharmaceuticals as ‘public goods’ affected the political economy of global health?
- How has the role of pharmaceutical companies from emerging markets in global health changed in the last two decades?
- What are key developments in the pharmaceutical industry that will affect the political economy of global health in the future?
Chair: Stefan Elbe, University of Sussex
Participants:
- Yanzhong Huang, Seton Hall University
- Rory Horner, University of Manchester
- Anne Roemer-Mahler, University of Sussex
- Susan Sell, Australian National University
Concluding Panel: Pharmaceuticals in Global Health – Life, Security and Governance
The concluding panel will reflect on the discussions of the two days, teasing out some of the bigger questions, and pointing out directions for further thinking and research.
Chair: Stefan Elbe, University of Sussex
Participants:
- Peter Burgess, Ecole Normale Superieure
- Colin McInnes, Aberystwyth University
- Rebecca Hester, Virginia Tech
- Susan Sell, Australian National University
