Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Promising pessimism
T2 - reading the futures to be avoided in biotech
AU - Tutton, Richard
PY - 2011/6
Y1 - 2011/6
N2 - A number of science and technology studies (STS) scholars have suggested that the performativity of the 'forward-looking statement' is an important institutional element of contemporary biocapital. This paper considers how, when making projections that set up expectations about their futures, firms also acknowledge and detail the risk factors that they face in their operations. In other words, in addition to projecting optimistic scenarios, firms advance much more pessimistic images of futures that they wish to avoid: possible failures, disappointments and financial losses. I examine such pessimistic projections in company filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investigate their discursive character. I ask what value such pessimism might hold for STS scholars interested in the mangle of science and capital. I sample the SEC filings of three companies: deCODE Genetics, DNAPrint Genomics Inc. and NitroMed Inc. In their own particular ways, these projections exemplify the volatility and the promise of the life sciences in the 21st century. My reading shows that such pessimistic risk factor statements provide interesting commentary on the dynamics of risk and innovation in the context of contemporary biocapital, raising questions to which analysts to date have given little attention.
AB - A number of science and technology studies (STS) scholars have suggested that the performativity of the 'forward-looking statement' is an important institutional element of contemporary biocapital. This paper considers how, when making projections that set up expectations about their futures, firms also acknowledge and detail the risk factors that they face in their operations. In other words, in addition to projecting optimistic scenarios, firms advance much more pessimistic images of futures that they wish to avoid: possible failures, disappointments and financial losses. I examine such pessimistic projections in company filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investigate their discursive character. I ask what value such pessimism might hold for STS scholars interested in the mangle of science and capital. I sample the SEC filings of three companies: deCODE Genetics, DNAPrint Genomics Inc. and NitroMed Inc. In their own particular ways, these projections exemplify the volatility and the promise of the life sciences in the 21st century. My reading shows that such pessimistic risk factor statements provide interesting commentary on the dynamics of risk and innovation in the context of contemporary biocapital, raising questions to which analysts to date have given little attention.
KW - anticipation
KW - biocapital
KW - futures
KW - promise
KW - sociology of expectations
KW - EXPECTATIONS
KW - TECHNOLOGY
KW - SOCIOLOGY
KW - BIDIL
KW - PHARMACEUTICALS
KW - REVOLUTION
KW - PROSPECTS
KW - GENETICS
KW - IMPACT
KW - MYTH
U2 - 10.1177/0306312710397398
DO - 10.1177/0306312710397398
M3 - Journal article
VL - 41
SP - 411
EP - 429
JO - Social Studies of Science
JF - Social Studies of Science
SN - 0306-3127
IS - 3
ER -