Assessing faculty financial relationships with industry - A case study

Context A growing number of academic researchers receive industry funding f or clinical and basic research, but little is known about the personal fina ncial relationships of researchers with their industry sponsors. Objectives To assess the extent to which faculty researchers have personal financial relationships with the sponsors of their research, the nature of those financial relationships, and efforts made at the institutional level to address disclosed financial relationships and perceived conflicts of int erest. Design and Setting Case study of the University of California, San Francisc o (UCSF). Data sources included disclosure forms and official documents mai ntained by the UCSF Office of Research Administration from December 1980 to October 1999, including decisions made by the UCSF Chancellor's Advisory P anel on Relations with Industry. Main Outcome Measures Number and types of personal financial relationships with external sponsors (positive financial disclosures from all clinical, b asic, or social science faculty who were principal investigators), amount o f annual income received from sponsors, and decisions and management strate gies used by the advisory panel. Results By 1999, almost 7.6% of faculty investigators reported personal fin ancial ties with sponsors of their research. Throughout the study period, 3 4% of disclosed relationships involved paid speaking engagements (range, $2 50-$20000 per year), 33% involved consulting agreements between researcher and sponsor (range, <$1000-$120 000 per year), and 32% involved the investi gator holding a position on a scientific advisory board or board of directo rs. Fourteen percent involved equity ownership, and 12% involved multiple r elationships. The advisory panel recommended managing perceived conflicts o f interest in 26% of the cases, including recommending the sale of stock, r ef using additional payment for talks, resigning from a management position , or naming a new principal investigator for a project. Conclusions Faculty researchers are increasingly involved in financial rela tionships with their research sponsors. Guidelines for what constitutes a c onflict and how the conflict should be managed are needed if researchers ar e to have consistent standards of behavior among institutions.