According to a recent study, since 2006 in the U.S., every year the number of advanced medical research in humans that’s funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decreased. Although the number of industry-funded trials has increased, the decline in federally funded trials concerns public health researchers. This is due to federally funded trials being independent, often meant to compare drugs or other treatments instead of simply show that a product works and should gain federal approval.
“My concern is that independent trials are on the decline, and that means we have less high-quality data to inform public health that are not influenced by commercial interests,” study leader Stephan Ehrhardt, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement.
As federal research budgets have decreased in the USA and Canada, increased industry sponsorship could allow trials to be carried out that would not otherwise have been possible, and new treatments can be made available.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the pharmaceutical industry have been major funders of clinical trials. Mark Grayson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents the country’s large biopharmaceutical researchers and biotechnology companies, said companies are not only finding important new therapies but sticking to voluntary principals that outline ethics and sharing of clinical information. “Clinical trials are conducted on human patients, rather than mice, or cells in a lab, so can give a clearer view of a treatment’s results and/or effectiveness for people.”
“Most people trust federal sponsorship more than industry sponsorship,” said Brian P. Kavanagh, chair of the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Toronto, who was not part of the new research letter. “Industry is paying, and naturally hopes to get a specific result, as they are trying to sell a drug.”
“If you’re the average patient you would like to have the best treatment that gives you the least amount of side effects,” and those decisions are made based on NIH funded trials, which do not have a commercial interest in the outcome, said Andrea M. Denicoff of the National Cancer Institute, who was not part of the new study.
From 2006 through 2014, there was a decrease in newly registered NIH-funded trials, whereas industry-funded trials increased substantially, based on trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov. The study appears in the December 15 issue of JAMA. By 2014, 6,550 clinical trials were funded by industry, and 1,048 by NIH. ClinicalTrials.gov is the world’s largest online registry.
An industry-funded trial of a drug for tumors might study a drug’s ability to shrink a tumor, not its ability to extend a patient’s lifespan or improve quality of life. Ehrhardt said he wants to spur debate on research funding. “We need a discussion on how to best allocate our health-related research budgets,” said Ehrhardt. “What best informs public health?” That study changed the way people eat and helped to reduce hypertension in many people. “There’s no money in that,” he concluded.
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