Socio-economic valuation of medical innovations: The emergence of a convention of destigmatization?

Based on the premise that territorial innovation models (TIMs) have nowadays to take into account the new territorial and socio-economic dynamics of innovation, this paper attempts to shed special light trough a qualitative research on the development of medical technologies innovation in Western Switzerland and – in particular – on the valuation of medical devices by producers. Firstly, this paper highlights that the territorial dynamics of the production and consumption of medical devices represent multi-local relationships organized on different scales, both institutional and social. Secondly, it offers a key to understanding the production-consumption community of medical devices – proposing a convention of destigmatization – under which the relationship between producers and consumers is based on discourses applied to devices by producers depending on the target audience and that go far beyond the technical values when they are intended for patients. JEL Codes: O31, O35, L26