ABSTRACT
Innovations in biotechnology have the potential to not only improve our health status, but also change how we live, what we value, and who we areleading to debates about the moral dimensions of personhood (4). Therefore, it is not surprising that a wide range of stakeholder groups want a role in determining how biotechnology should be used, regulated, and financed, particularly as they have argued that the current oversight mechanisms are inadequate to meet the new challenges. Despite their specialized technical expertise, scientists and businesspersons are not viewed as having the requisite skills to address questions that are inevitably normative, value laden, and metaphysical in character. While many patients eagerly await the benefits of new and more effective treatments, other members of the public fear that we will simultaneously alter human nature in deleterious ways. While much of the current public debate about genetic advances has focused on stem cell research and reproductive cloning, in the near term a far greater number of people will be impacted by the new biotech drugs produced by scientists working in molecular biology and drug development (5). The role of bioethicists in this setting is to raise doubts and ask difficult questions about the morality of certain technological innovations, while simultaneously providing a justificatory framework for determining what actions are morally permissible and why. The objective is to help decision makers in the biopharmaceutical industry anticipate the potential outcomes of their R&D investments and develop ethically sound strategies for their research and marketing efforts.
