Industry Funding by Itself is Not a Reason for Rating Down Studies for Risk of Bias

To evaluate how study characteristics and methodological aspects compare based on presence or absence of industry funding, Hughes et al. conducted a systematic survey of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in three major medical journals. The authors found industry-funded RCTs were more likely to be blinded, post results on a clinical trials registration database (ClinicalTrials.gov), and accrue high citation counts.¹ Conversely, industry-funded trials had smaller sample sizes and more frequently used placebo as the comparator, used a surrogate as their primary outcome, and had positive results.