Marketing Medicine's “Sports Car”

Abstract

Although there was considerably less enthusiasm for the development of MRI in the United States in the 1970s, when MRI became clinically viable in the early 1980s, the situation changed dramatically. In 1983, even before the first MRI received Federal Drug Agency's approval, 93 out of 145 MRI machines in clinical settings were located in the United States. This chapter explores the emergence of the MRI market in the United States and the resulting transformation in the trajectory of MRI research and clinical possibilities and in the transnational geography. The emergence of the MRI market, this chapter shows, was marked by two opposed discourses. On the one hand, the dominant position of the United States in scientific research as well as in the global economy facilitated the acceptance of MRI. On the other hand, the marketing of MRI remained contingently tied to concerns with regard to safety, efficacy, and cost. MRI market was not only propelled by, but also propelled, continual growth in diagnostic and research possibilities. It was also entangled with several biomedical transformations that included the emergence of a medical industrial complex and the redesigning of the technoservice complex.