Temporal Layering: How past, future and present intersect in the valuation of pharmaceutical innovation

Abstract

We investigate how temporality matters in processes of valuation. Taking our empirical point of departure in the case of a novel gene therapy that has been the centre of a heated pricing debate, we explore how the ‘goodness’ of such a pharmaceutical good was negotiated by researchers, patients, pharmaceutical companies and regulators, and how these negotiations were shaped by the mobilisation of past experiences and future expectations. Seeking to advance the beginning of an analytical sensitivity to temporality in valuation studies, we develop the notion of ‘temporal layering’. We argue that moments of valuation consist of multiple ‘temporal layers’ where select past experiences and future expectations are rendered visible – or left obscure – depending on how these layers are drawn upon in valuation struggles and by whom. Thus, what is at stake in determining the ‘good’ in particular moments of valuation is not just a contest over certain qualities or ways to evaluate an object, but also over which (particular layers of) pasts and futures come to count. We suggest that such fine-grained temporal analysis can provide new openings to questions of valuation for a wide-ranging array of economic objects, particularly for those situated in contemporary bioeconomies.