Making Medicine a Business

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 1-13

3. The Emergence of an Industry

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 15-56

4. The Birth of a New Medical Discipline

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 57-105

5. Cooperation Between Firms and Doctors

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 107-128

6. The Diffusion of Radiology and Its Effects on Hospital Management

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 129-152

7. Regulating the Healthcare System

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 153-172

8. Conclusion

   • Pierre-Yves Donzé

   Pages 173-179

9. Back Matter

   Pages 181-199

   PDF

This book goes back to the origins of the transformation of health and medicine into a business, during the first part of the twentieth century, focusing on the example of Japan. In the past hundred years, medicine has gone from being a charitable activity to a large economic sector, amounting to 12–15% of the GDP in many developed countries, and one of the fastest-growing businesses around the world. Despite the mounting presence of the medical industry, there is a lack of academic work detailing this major transformation. The objective of this book is to fill this gap and address the following question: how did medicine become a business? Using over ten years of research in the field, Pierre-Yves Donzé argues that economic factors and business factors were decisive in transforming the way that medicine enters our lives. This book will be of interest to historians of medicine, business historians, health economists, scholars in medical humanities, and more.

• Corporate Japan
• Technological Innovation and the economy
• Medical industry
• Corporate history
• Critical economic history

• Osaka University, Toyonaka, Japan

  Pierre-Yves Donzé

Pierre-Yves Donzé is a professor of business history at Osaka University, Japan and a visiting professor at Fribourg University, Switzerland.

Policies and ethics