Guiding Icarus: Merging Bioethics with Corporate Interests

By Rahul K. Dhanda

"There is a palpable need for business to explore the issues Dhanda raises. Guiding Icarus offers a flight plan."
-from the Foreword by Philip R. Reilly
Guiding ICARUS
Merging Bioethics with Corporate Interests
Rahul K. Dhanda
While bioethicists may enjoy the most thorough appreciation of both the promise and perils of new biotechnologies, international corporations are in fact the entities generating these technologies and determining their application. An industry insider versed in the language of bioethics, Rahul Dhanda offers in Guiding Icarus: Merging Bioethics with Corporate Interests a Rosetta stone to these two camps, explaining why each needs the other, why their disparate concerns often cohere, and why an ethical business is likely a successful one.
The author develops a dialogue between bioethics and corporate interests by examining case studies of several hot-button issues, including:
* Genetically modified foods
* DNA data banking
* Personalized medicine
* Stem cell research
In each instance he provides a treatment of the particular science under consideration, a list of the benefits of the technology, a description of the ethical issues involved, an account of past industry response, and recommendations for future action. Given the expansive nature of biotechnology, ramifications in the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries are covered in depth as well. The book also features a Foreword by world-renowned bioethicist and biotechnology CEO Philip R. Reilly as well as a step-by-step discussion of the components of business and bioethical issues.
Written for a general audience, Guiding Icarus will be particularly useful to biotechnologists, regulatory affairs managers, and corporate officers of biotechnology firms, as well as bioethicists in the academic community. Dhanda's peerless text provides a unique tool for understanding and addressing the ethical dilemmas confronting society in the 21st century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471223808
• ISBN13: 9780471223801
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Wiley-Liss
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Interesting and Useful

"...an interesting and useful resource for any industry insider..." (Chemistry & Industry)

Recommended Book

"Dhanda applies a case study approach to four timely topics: genetically modified foods, DNA databanking, personalized medicine, and stem cell research. In each case, Dhanda gives a very basic review of the science, discusses the potential benefits of the technology and the ethical issues, and then uses prominent corporate examples to raise relevant issues and draw lessons." (JAMA, January 22/29, 2003-Vol 289, No. 4)

Indispensable Guide to Corporate Ethics

Finally, someone has written a book from an insider's perspective that analyzes both bioethics and industry. Having worked in the biotech industry for years, and having an amateur's interest in philosophy and bioethics, I was amazed at how clearly Dhanda was able to synthesize the two. This is a book I wish that I had written, but I cannot imagine how he was able to draw on so much literature from both fields; few in the world could have written such a book due to the immense specialization and division of labor we find in both fields. Not only does Dhanda prove that he understands how both science and business really work (something that I have found few people writing in the field of bioethics have any knowledge of), but he also does a remarkable job of clearly framing the issues confronting the fields today. Guiding Icarus is a book that, while offering insights and wisdom to anyone interested in the general realm of industry, philosophy, and ethics, is particularly recommended to anyone working in biotechnology. Executives in the industry ignore this insightful, indispensable work at their peril.