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Comment by twoodfin

14 hours ago

How is it a conflict of interest for GLP-1 makers and the scientists who work with/for them to look for new medical value in an academic setting with willing collaborators and all the usual peer review?

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twoodfin

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dgacmu  14 hours ago

It's not but there's a lot of historical evidence that those situations are more likely to produce research that looks favorible to the sponsoring company. So it means you have to be a little more careful when looking at those results.

  • twoodfin  14 hours ago

    What evidence are you talking about? Do you think industrial scientists collaborating with academics and vice-versa is unusual?

    • dgacmu  13 hours ago

      In addition to the funding bias wikipedia article someone else already cited:

      https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.MR...

      > Sponsorship of drug and device studies by the manufacturing company leads to more favorable efficacy results and conclusions than sponsorship by other sources. Our analyses suggest the existence of an industry bias that cannot be explained by standard 'Risk of bias' assessments.

      And no! It's not unusual, nor does it mean the results are wrong. It just means there's a known bias towards results that favor the sponsor's interests that needs to be taken into account when evaluating the research. Again, that doesn't make it wrong. But it should make you cautious before thinking that a single study (in a very specific sub-population, at that) is necessarily going to generalize. It might. I hope it does! GLP-1's are awesome. But cautiously.

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