The "Entrepreneurial State" and the leveraging of life in the field of regenerative medicine

This chapter uses regenerative medicine (RM) as a case study to examine the role of the State in reconfiguring and mobilising biomedicine within the new health bioeconomy. Governments are attempting to create a ‘health and wealth’-generating RM industry in a manner that aligns with the Entrepreneurial State by encouraging innovation-facilitating initiatives. This chapter explores such initiatives in the UK, and the values invoked within them. We argue that the power of the Entrepreneurial State in reconfiguring the bioeconomy derives from its capacity to appeal to diverse values, and consequently, mobilise and orientate a range of actors (industry, scientists, clinicians and patients) into a common project aimed at generating ‘health and wealth’. We reflect on the State’s role in attempting to serve as a broker between public and private good, and in doing so we also highlight some of the tensions and countervailing processes at play within the new health bioeconomy.