Producing Value or Responding to Valuation?

SMEs’ Strategies for Commercialising Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell and Bioprinting Technology

Abstract

This paper examines how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) commercialise contemporary biomodifying technologies, focusing on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and 3D bioprinting. Drawing on qualitative interviews and desk-based mapping of the commercial landscapes surrounding these technologies, we analyse what is being commercialised, in what forms, and how firms justify their strategic choices. Combining insights from STS debates on value in the bioeconomy with concepts from valuation studies, we show that commercial value is rarely realised through anticipated therapeutic applications. Instead, it emerges through nearer-term markets for research tools, services, and platforms embedded within existing biomedical and pharmaceutical infrastructures. Our comparative analysis highlights how firms mobilise knowledge, expertise, and networks as assets, and how strategies of enclosure—through intellectual property, secrecy, and proprietary know-how—are shaped by anticipated evaluations from investors, customers, and regulators. We argue that embedded valuation practices play a constitutive role in directing innovation trajectories, favouring centralised control and constraining alternative, more open models of biomedical innovation.