The ISSP was delighted to host Professor Sergio Sismondo from Queen's University. Entitled Big Pharma's Invisible hands, the talk explored the mechanisms by which pharmaceutical industry manufactures supply and demand for pharmaceuticals.
Hidden from public view, many invisible hands of the pharmaceutical industry channel streams of drug information and knowledge from contract research organizations (that extract data from experimental bodies) to publication planners (who produce ghostwritten medical journal articles) to key opinion leaders (who are sent out to educate physicians about drugs). This presentation introduced some of these activities, which are elements of ‘assemblage marketing’ — the construction of markets by shaping a wide variety of elements to fit together and subtly constrain each other.
Documents
Speaker's bios (PDF file)
Links
Event photos (Facebook album)
Opening Remarks
Professor Monica Gattinger, Director, ISSP, University of Ottawa
Moderator
Professor Kelly Bronson, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences (Core Member, ISSP, University of Ottawa)
Keynote Speaker
Professor Sergio Sismondo, Philosophy Department, Queen's University