COMMERCIAL AND SCIENTIFIC CONFLICT IN BIOMEDICAL PUBLISHING:
THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY
Paul M Woodcock and Hamish A Cameron
Medical Affairs Department, 11F128, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Mereside, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 4TG, UK
The rules on publication and the process of peer review have evolved to balance the competing forces surrounding the sponsorship, conduct, and reporting of clinical trials that have changed clinical practice and have been sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, although there continues to be concern among the medical profession about commercial influence of the publication process. Zeneca Pharmaceuticals is aware of these concerns but, as a research-based company, has a genuine scientific and educational need to communicate findings from sponsored research involving its products. For such publications to have credibility with peer reviewers and achieve acceptance by major journals, it is essential that the authors of company-sponsored research, whether or not they are company employees, produce manuscripts that are accurate, meet best ethical and professional standards, and protect the interests of patients while not compromising the intellectual property of the company. To guide employees faced with these complex issues, Zeneca has introduced a policy for external publication of scientific information. The policy has been developed in consultation with publishers, journal editors, and investigators and includes topics such as patient safety, publication standards, authorship, trademarks, ghostwriting, conflict of interest, and copyright issues. Thus, Zeneca intends to develop publications that meet accepted ethical standards while providing effective support for the presentation of Zeneca products to the scientific community. This presentation will highlight the dilemma facing those with both commercial and scientific objectives in biomedical publishing from the perspective of a major international pharmaceutical company.
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