How the transformation of biomedical research into financial assets is reshaping what diseases get studied and which patients get served
Imagine a world where biotech companies achieve staggering market valuations despite having no actual products to sell. Where promising research projects are shelved not because they lack therapeutic potential, but because they offer insufficient future revenue streams. Welcome to the paradoxical reality of modern biomedical innovation, where the pursuit of cures increasingly intersects with the financial logic of asset creation.
Biotech firms valued at over $1 trillion with minimal product output
Therapeutic potential vs. revenue potential in research decisions
Healing mission vs. profit imperative in medical innovation
Traditionally, we understand products as commodities—things made and sold, like pills or medical devices. Assetization represents a fundamental shift beyond this model. According to scholars Kean Birch and Fabian Muniesa, an asset is "something that can be owned or controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream, often involving the valuation of discounted future earnings in the present" 5 .
In simpler terms, assets derive value not primarily from immediate sales, but from their potential to generate future income. Think of the difference between selling a single drug (a commodity) versus controlling a patent that can yield decades of licensing fees (an asset). This shift in economic logic has profound implications for what diseases get researched, which treatments get developed, and ultimately, who gets cured.
The asset mindset now permeates even academic science. Researchers face intense pressure to secure funding and academic prestige in a hypercompetitive environment. As studies of European and Austrian researchers reveal, innovative technologies—from genomic sequencing tools to AI platforms—are increasingly enrolled as "assets" that signal innovativeness and promise future academic returns through publications and grants 2 .
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing cycle: technologies that excel as academic assets attract more research investment, regardless of their therapeutic potential. The result is what some scholars call the epistemic consequences of assetization—where choices about what to research are shaped by financial valuations as much as by healing potential 2 .
Assetization shifts focus from producing treatments (commodities) to controlling future revenue streams (assets), fundamentally changing what gets researched and developed in biomedicine.
The life sciences sector presents a puzzling contradiction: despite minimal product output, global market capitalization of the biotech industry soared to over $1 trillion by 2014 3 . This disconnect between financial valuation and tangible output reveals how thoroughly assetization has transformed the sector.
Unlike traditional manufacturing, where value correlates with production, biomedical firms can achieve spectacular valuations based primarily on promissory value—the anticipated future revenues from their intellectual property portfolios. This speculative dimension means that a promising patent on a gene therapy technique might be valued more highly than a reliably produced but less novel generic drug 3 .
What drives this system? The process depends on various political-economic actors—venture capitalists, stock analysts, patent attorneys—who collectively determine how biomedical discoveries are valued as assets 3 . Their valuations consider factors like:
Through these practices, biomedical innovations become "assets" that can be traded, bundled, and capitalized upon long before they become actual therapies available to patients.
To understand assetization's real-world impact, consider a research experiment conducted in European plant genomics and soil microbial ecology 2 . Though not biomedical, this case perfectly illustrates how assetization influences scientific priorities across fields.
Researchers observed and interviewed scientists in two strategic positions:
The study analyzed how researchers made decisions about adopting innovative technologies—comparing choices that prioritized assets (signaling innovativeness, attracting funding) versus epistemic values (pursuing scientific truth, addressing pressing problems) 2 .
The findings revealed a clear pattern: researchers frequently adopted technologies that could function as academic assets, even when these technologies didn't fully align with their scientific goals or were considered epistemically suboptimal 2 .
| Technology Characteristic | Asset Value | Epistemic Value |
|---|---|---|
| Novelty and buzzword compliance | High priority | Secondary consideration |
| Alignment with funding trends | Strong influence | Minimal influence |
| Data generation speed | Highly valued | Moderately valued |
| Methodological robustness | Secondary | Primary |
| Relevance to pressing problems | Variable | Central |
The data showed that considerations about potential future academic revenues sometimes overrode particular epistemic valuations 2 . Technologies that excelled at generating "interesting data" quickly—regardless of its long-term significance—were prioritized over tools better suited to answering fundamental scientific questions.
Modern biomedical research relies on sophisticated tools that themselves represent valuable assets. Here are key components of the researcher's toolkit, illustrating the infrastructure underlying asset-driven science:
| Research Tool | Primary Function | Asset Dimension |
|---|---|---|
| Genomic sequencing platforms | Deciphering genetic codes | Generate patentable discoveries |
| Monoclonal antibodies | Target specific proteins | Enable proprietary assays |
| CRISPR-Cas9 systems | Precision gene editing | Create valuable IP platforms |
| AI-driven data analysis | Identify patterns in complex data | Accelerate patentable insights |
| Liquid biopsy technologies | Minimally invasive disease monitoring | Enable continuous revenue streams |
These tools exemplify the double nature of modern research technologies: they advance science while simultaneously functioning as assets within the knowledge economy.
Assetization creates systematic biases in which diseases and approaches receive attention. Rare diseases affecting wealthy populations may attract disproportionate investment compared to widespread conditions in poorer regions. Similarly, incremental improvements on existing treatments might be prioritized over paradigm-shifting approaches with higher scientific risk but greater potential impact 2 3 .
Common conditions in developing countries receive less investment despite higher burden
Incremental improvements favored over high-risk, high-reward innovations
Treatments for smaller patient populations deprioritized regardless of severity
Perhaps most troubling is what happens to scientific knowledge itself. When research decisions prioritize asset value, we see what scholars term epistemic consequences—compromises in what we can know about the world 2 . The technologies and approaches best suited to functioning as assets determine the direction of scientific inquiry, potentially leaving entire areas of promising research unexplored.
| Area of Impact | Traditional Science Values | Asset-Driven Science Values |
|---|---|---|
| Research questions | Scientific significance | Funding attractiveness |
| Technology adoption | Methodological appropriateness | Signaling innovativeness |
| Success metrics | Knowledge advancement | Patent generation, publications |
| Collaboration | Knowledge sharing | Competitive advantage |
| Time orientation | Long-term understanding | Short-term results |
When financial valuation drives research priorities, entire areas of scientific inquiry may remain unexplored, limiting our understanding of disease and potential treatments.
The tension between medicine's healing mission and capitalism's profit imperative isn't inevitable. Understanding assetization represents the first step toward shaping biomedical innovation systems that better serve public health needs.
Developing approaches that de-link medical research from asset logics, such as public-private partnerships with social mandates or philanthropic funding with explicit public health goals.
Creating metrics that recognize diverse forms of value beyond financial returns, including public health impact, equity considerations, and long-term societal benefits.
Implementing policies and regulations that balance commercial interests with public health priorities, ensuring that medical innovation serves broader societal needs.
The assetization of biomedical innovation represents a fundamental reshaping of how we value and pursue medical progress. While it has driven certain efficiencies and technological advances, it has also created troubling imbalances in what diseases get studied and which patients get served.
Navigating this landscape requires recognizing that value in medicine cannot be reduced to future revenue streams. The true "assets" of biomedical innovation are not just patents and technologies, but the knowledge, health, and lives they impact. By broadening our understanding of value beyond assetization, we can work toward an innovation ecosystem that truly serves the cause of healing—where the pursuit of cures aligns with the needs of patients, not just the logics of finance.
The future of medicine depends not on abandoning innovation, but on reimagining its values—ensuring that our systems for developing cures remain worthy of the lives they aim to save.