PATERSON Erin

Doctorante Chercheur à Le Département d'Histoire des sciences de la Vie et de la Santé de l'Université de Strasbourg

paterson@unistra.fr

Axes de recherche / sujet de thèse

The Dry Antibiotic Pipeline and the Global Policy Laboratory (1980-2010)

This thesis is a study on the history of antibiotic regulation at the international level between circa 1980 and 2010. The aim is to understand how the narrative of a decline in innovation, research and development of new antibiotics, along with a growing concern about antimicrobial resistance, has arisen internationally. How has this narrative been played out by the many actors involved in the international regulation of medicines? How did it contribute to the adoption of industry-friendly policies from the 2000s onwards, through various incentive mechanisms facilitating the discovery of new molecules and their marketing?

Key focus will be applied to how the actors involved in the field of international drug development and regulation produced a process of 'cognitive alignment' between the 1980s and the late 2000s, where experts ended up adopting the Dry Pipeline narrative and agreeing on solutions to resolve it. Regulations here broadly meaning the setting of international requirements for production, registration, quality control, etc., and the multiple international expert bodies working to facilitate the production, marketing and circulation of antibiotics on a global scale.

Direct focus will be applied to how how pharmaceutical companies have invested in the international arena of antibiotic regulation, by participating in knowledge production activities on an international scale about antibiotic resistance, by defending certain uses (in human and veterinary medicine in particular), or by providing expertise for production requirements. Additional areas of inquiry include international antimicrobial resistance surveillance networks; policies to combat fake antibiotics; the production of codes and guidelines for prudent use, or the standardization of marketing procedures, etc.

Mots-clés : History of Science, History of Medicine, History of Technology, Antibiotics, Antimicrobial Resistance, Dry App Project