FASEB : OPA :

A website containing recommendations, tools, and resources for the management of financial relationships between academia and industry in biomedical research.

Background

There are many benefits to joint and synergistic relationships involving academia and industry. It is only through such relationships that advancements in the life sciences can most rapidly achieve the maximum benefit to society. The rise in academia-industry relationships in biomedical research has been accompanied by increasing concerns about risks due to financial conflicts of interest. These risks include the potential to bias research, delay trainee progress, compromise efficient and wide dissemination of research results, harm human research participants, and decrease public trust.

As representatives and leaders within the biomedical research community, FASEB believes that maintaining the public trust and assuring the integrity of basic and clinical research is of the highest importance. Given our representation of over 80,000 practicing scientists, FASEB is uniquely positioned to proactively address these issues. While other groups have addressed conflict of interest, we are particularly concerned with the perspectives of investigators who work in the public interest in all research-based institutions, particularly academic and not-for-profit institutions where the majority of FASEB society member scientists are represented.

Phase II: July 1, 2006-Sept. 30, 2007

FASEB developed a set of guiding principles for investigators to address challenges as a result of financial relationships with industry. FASEB is poised to expand this work with the generous support of a grant awarded on July 1, 2006 from the ORI-AAMC RCR Program for Academic Societies to Promote Research Integrity. FASEB will convene a coalition of major stakeholders to manage the next phase. Over the course of one year, this coalition will develop and implement activities to achieve two major goals: 1) raise awareness of conflict-of-interest issues on the part of investigators and 2) call for more standard practices for conflicts of interest disclosure and management in biomedical research.

• COI TOOLKIT   
• Call to Action Meeting -July 17, 2007 - Summary - Agenda - Participants
• About the Project
• One page summary
• FASEB Receives Grant to Address Conflicts of Interest, July 14, 2006
• Financial Disclosure Policies of Scientific Publications.  Laura M. Brockway and Leo T. Furcht. JAMA, December 27, 2006.

Phase I: June 2005-June 2006

In June 2005, FASEB hosted the conference, “Shared responsibility, individual integrity: Scientists addressing conflicts of interest in biomedical research.” The purpose of the conference was to consider and respond to serious challenges involving conflict of interest in biomedical research. Speakers from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit associations outlined the issues and a break-out session allowed more detailed discussion. The conference prepared FASEB for a continuing discussion of these issues, and a steering committee continued to develop several key issues that were raised. The resulting white paper, released on July 14, 2006, represents a consensus statement on overarching principles and voluntary standards for the conduct and management of academia-industry interactions from the scientists’ perspective.

• Conflicts of interest in biomedical research – the FASEB guidelines. Laura M. Brockway and Leo T. Furcht. The FASEB Journal. December 2006
   

• "Shared responsibility, Individual Integrity: Scientists Addressing Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research." white paper, released July 14, 2006
   

• June 2005 conference agenda

Resources

• Presentation for Society for Scholarly Publishers meeting, November 13, 2006 (PPT)
  

• Office of Research Integrity
  

• Financial Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Research, Association of American Medical Colleges

• Report on Individual and Institutional Financial Conflict of Interest, Association of American Universities

• Recognizing and Managing Personal Financial Conflicts of Interest, Council on Government Relations