Direct industry support for academic research dropped, survey says

Just over half of the life scientists doing research at American universities have some kind of relationship with pharmaceutical or biotech companies, Boston researchers report. But the proportion of researchers whose work was funded directly by industry appears to be falling.

Writing in the current issue of Health Affairs, a group from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy reports that 53 percent of academic scientists said they had ties to industry, mostly serving as consultants, paid speakers, or scientific advisory board members. Faculty members whose research studies were paid for by industry dropped to 20 percent from 28 percent in 1995, the last time the team polled a similar sample of academic researchers.

"This is the first time we have noticed a decline in industry funding," co-author Eric Campbell said in an interview.

The authors point to a number of forces that might be behind the drop, including a doubling of federal research funds from the National Institutes of Health between 1995 and 2007, when the latest survey was done, and flat research spending by companies during that period.

The survey of more than 2,000 researchers also found that industry funding was concentrated among the most senior and productive faculty members, which the authors said could potentially limit the pool of academic scientists without industry ties available to advise such bodies as the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH, or the Institute of Medicine.

"Physician relationships with industry are ubiquitous, in medical education, in research, and in patient care," Campbell said. "It's everywhere."