Hybrid solutions: 21st-century changes in pharmaceutical regulation and innovation

Linsey McGoey is Lecturer in Sociology the University of Essex, a post she took up following a PhD in Sociology at the London School of Economics, an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford, and a James Martin Fellowship in Science and Technology Studies at Oxford's Said Business School. Her research is focused on three broad areas: 1) a comparative analysis of UK and US pharmaceutical regulation; 2) an exploration of the politics and epistemology of knowledge and ignorance as tools for asserting expertise, mobilizing financial resources, and exonerating blame in the aftermath of medical and scientific controversies, and 3) the politics of global health governance and funding. Her work has appeared in journals such as Economy and Society, History of the Human Sciences, the Lancet, Science as Culture, and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. She was recently guess editor (with Ayo Wahlberg and Julian Reiss) of a special issue of BioSocieties on the politics of global health governance, and is serving as editor of a forthcoming special issue of Economy and Society titled “Strategic Unknowns: Framing the Sociology of Ignorance.” From 2007 to 2012, Linsey has acted as advisory expert to the European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN), a forum funded by the European Science Foundation to foster cross-disciplinary exchanges between neuroscientists, social scientists, legal scholars and philosophers interested in new developments in the neurosciences. While at Brocher, she intends to develop research on the political economy of new philanthropic players in global health. She also intends to collaborate with another Brocher researcher, Emily Jackson, on a publication focussing on questions of transparency and conflicts of interest within pharmaceutical regulation and philanthropic spending on global health. While at Brocher, Linsey and Emily will be giving a seminar at the WHO.