Academic-industrial collaboration: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Academic-industrial collaborations and technology transfer have over the past 50 years played an increasingly prominent role in the biomedical sciences. University partnerships with industry can expedite the availability of innovative drugs and other medical technologies, bringing both important public health benefits and a source of income for universities and their faculty through a variety of financial arrangements. However, these relationships raise ethical concerns, particularly when research involves human subjects in clinical trials. Lapses in oversight of industry-sponsored clinical trials at universities, and especially patient deaths in a number of trials, have brought these issues into the public spotlight and have led the federal government to intensify its oversight of clinical research. The leadership of Harvard Medical School convened a group of leaders in academic medicine to formulate guidelines on individual financial conflicts of interest. They and other groups are working to formulate a national consensus on this issue.