Corporate influence over clinical research: considering the alternatives

Summary. The dominant business model of the pharmaceutical sector is based on the massive promotion of drugs that often do not represent any significant therapeutic advance. Clinical research is therefore run like a promotional campaign. The data obtained from clinical research are primarily used to boost and support sales rather than to improve prescribing behaviour. Three common and widely used corporate strategies are used to this end: ghostwriters are employed to inflate the number of publications showing the drug in a positive light; results that would harm sales are not published (publication bias); and negative data are suppressed, sometimes going as far as to intimidate troublesome independent academics and whistle-blowers. The objective of these strategies is to enable the new drug to gain market share from its competitors. If medicine is to progress, research must be more independent and freed from the commercial imperatives of the pharmaceutical industry.

PMID: 22852295