It takes two to tango

Abstract

Academic science and industry become increasingly entangled as companies sponsor academic research and scientists take financial interest in companies. The advantages of this trend are clear for both sides. Corporate money will spill over into non-sponsored research of the investigator's group, and companies can present their products in the light of independently obtained scientific evidence. However, conflicts of interest can arise especially in the latter case. A report in the New York Times (1 November 2000) describes how a California-based company, Immune Response Corporation, tried to block a publication claiming that its HIV vaccine Remune was not effective and has claimed $7 million from the investigators who published the finding. The company paid for the study and stated that the data belonged to it. The researchers say, however, that the contract gave them the right to publish the data without the company's permission. With ongoing commercialization of academic research, more problems of this calibre are to be expected, and the scientific community might have to decide on clear guidelines to optimize the symbiosis between industry and academia. [J.d.B.]