This article explores a nexus between society, nature and technology (SNT) in the context of a biomedical problem-solution through innovation project for a new product development in the biopharmaceutical sector. The nexus implies that social intervention is an antecedent to and consequence of nature as a type of morbidity. The central proposition is that national morbidities are partially resulting of national institutions such as policy and culture, and the national institutions partially constitute the response to through industrialisation processes and cultural habits. Based on the data from China and India as two comparable socio-culture contexts, we draw on six types of national morbidities: diabetes, infections, cancer, hepatitis, respiratory dysfunction and hypertension. An analysis shows that diabetes and infectious diseases projects exist more in India; cancer, hepatitis and hypertension projects exist more in China; and contrary to prediction, respiratory dysfunction project appears more in India than China. There are some statistical differences between the North and South regions. The discussion explains the SNT nexus in a broader context suggests two types of interventions: preventive and curing. The preventive intervention comes before nature (morbidity), and the curing intervention occurs after the formation of morbidity. We suggest that preventive institutional intervention for education can be more effective than curing intervention. The prevention mechanism induces awareness; the curing mechanism induces treatment solutions. Our argument supports the social development as much as industrialisation, and not pure industrialisation alone.

Introduction

This study integrates three related streams of ideas on the social–nature coevolution. One stream suggests that national institutions intervene in biological morbidity and predict its change in the cycle. The industrial policies and cultural habits leading to environmental changes are in this stream. The second stream suggests that nature shapes the social–technological response. For example, the industrial policy in the biomedical sector and cultural responses that allow research and development in the process. National morbidity, such as cancer as an instance of nature, has roots in social institutions and attracts social intervention in the form of technological solutions (Spilg et al., 2012). The third stream represents the national institution as a cause and consequence of the changes in the natural phenomenon (Malik, 2017a, 2017b). Appendix A depicts these links at a coevolutionary level in an abstract idea. We call this integrated theme the society–nature–technology (SNT) nexus. This triadic relationship in the framework projects cultural motion as a predictor, national morbidity as its results, and social–technological response as the cultural evolution in the triad in integration (Dawkins, 1989). The SN (society–nature) dyad predicts that human action alters morbidity in coevolution. Global warming through CO2 emissions captures the SN relationship. Industrialisation causes pollution–lead national morbidities (Lancet, 2017). Similarly, tobacco smoking, as a memetic social habit, leads to cancer morbidities (Czerwinski et al., 2007; de Walque, 2010; Hirayama, 1981). Excessive raw sugar consumption, as a cultural and ritual practice, leads to diabetes (Bhattacharya, 2015; King et al., 1998; Nicolaisen, 2009).