TY  - JOUR
T1  - EValuation of conflict of interest in economic analyses of new drugs used in oncology
AU  - Friedberg M, Saffran B, Stinson TJ, Nelson W, Bennett CL
Y1  - 1999/10/20
N1  - 10.1001/jama.282.15.1453
JO  - JAMA
SP  - 1453
EP  - 1457
VL  - 282
IS  - 15
N2  - Context 
                  Recent studies have found that when investigators have financial relationships
with pharmaceutical or product manufacturers, they are less likely to criticize
the safety or efficacy of these agents. The effects of health economics research
on pharmaceutical company revenue make drug investigations potentially vulnerable
to this bias.Objective 
                  To determine whether there is an association between pharmaceutical
industry sponsorship and economic assessment of oncology drugs.Design 
                  MEDLINE and HealthSTAR databases (1988-1998) were searched for original
English-language research articles of cost or cost-effectiveness analyses
of 6 oncology drugs in 3 new drug categories (hematopoietic colony-stimulating
factors, serotonin antagonist antiemetics, and taxanes), yielding 44 eligible
articles. Two investigators independently abstracted each article based on
specific criteria.Main Outcome Measure 
                  Relationships between funding source and (1) qualitative cost assessment
(favorable, neutral, or unfavorable) and (2) qualitative conclusions that
overstated quantitative results.Results 
                  Pharmaceutical company–sponsored studies were less likely than
nonprofit-sponsored studies to report unfavorable qualitative conclusions
(1/20 [5%] vs 9/24 [38%]; P=.04), whereas overstatements
of quantitative results were not significantly different in pharmaceutical
company–sponsored (6/20 [30%]) vs nonprofit-sponsored (3/24 [13%]) studies
(P=.26).Conclusions 
                  Although we did not identify bias in individual studies, these findings
indicate that pharmaceutical company sponsorship of economic analyses is associated
with reduced likelihood of reporting unfavorable results.
SN  - 0098-7484
M3  - doi: 10.1001/jama.282.15.1453
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.282.15.1453
ER  -