Introduction: Setting a Scene

Abstract

It is a commonplace to worry about the pace of innovation in biomedicine. From the perspective of some actors, innovation moves too quickly, throwing up complex regulatory issues and ethical dilemmas that are sometimes barely tractable. For others, innovation cannot take place fast enough: in the here and now, there are lives to be saved and there is suffering to be eased. Often these two contrasting apprehensions toward biomedical innovation reside simultaneously in a single actor (whether that actor be individual or collective). This ambivalence reflects the contradictory character of much that passes for biomedical innovation. With the development and arrival of a new drug, technology, procedure or intervention, not only might lives be saved, but they can also be endangered at one and the same time.