"Icelandic Scandals: deCODE Genetics and Other Tales of Excess and Bankruptcy": A presentation by Mike Fortun
Michael Fortun is a professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Some of his recent work includes "Scientific Imaginaries and Ethical Plateaus in Contemporary U.S. Toxicology" (Co-authored with Kim Fortun, 2005), and Promising Genomics: Iceland and deCODE Genetics in a World of Speculation (2008). Mike Fortun's visit is hosted by the Health and Society Group of Quadrant, a joint initiative of the University of Minnesota Press and the Institute for Advanced Study. Quadrant is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This presentation uses deCODE Genetics and its operations in Iceland as an index of the science and political economy of genomics, and the international political economy more broadly, from the late 1990s to the present. It tracks deCODE's evolution from incorporation in the U.S. (although conveniently taggable as "an Icelandic company") in 1996, overwhelmingly dependent on a promise from primary stockholder Hoffmann-La Roche for operating capital; to the "grey market" years, when deCODE, a Luxembourg shell corporation, and Icelandic banks together used inflated stock prices to transfer $69 million to deCODE's bank account from those of hundreds of Icelanders fed promises of national greatness and profit; to its lucrative initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ, fueled by the speculations of on-line investors as well as more material initiatives run by underwriter Morgan Stanley, just before the bursting of the bio-info-tech bubble in 2001. Fortun discusses how changes in U.S. securities law abetted deCODE's scientific and economic promises to its shareholders, and how the political alliance behind deCODE also became implicated in the collapse of the Icelandic economy.
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