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Objectives
The purpose of this website is provide access to key documents regarding the practices of:
- the pharmaceutical industry
- the drug agencies
- the drug reimbursement agencies
- researchers and physicians
- medical organizations, medical journals
that potentially involve conflicts of interests.
Conflicts of interest are defined as situations whereby a person, company or institution is expected to uphold one interest (the legitimate interest), but may be influenced - consciously or not - to act in a different way because of another diverging interest (the conflicting interest). For example, an employee of a regulatory agency is expected to act so as to further the public interest of giving patients access to only safe and effective medicine; if this employee has invested in the pharmaceutical company having filed the marketing application, his decision to approve or reject the application may be influenced by his financial interest.
A conflict of interest is generally held to exist as soon as third parties could reasonably suppose that a conflicting interest is present (so-called potential conflicts of interest). What is then protected is the trust of the public in the government, the institution or the company.
This broad definition makes conflicts of interest ubiquiitous. Most conflicting interests are, directly or indirectly, of a financial nature. More rarely, the conflicting interest is uniquely of a personal nature; for example, a person, company or institution is intent on proving something to be right or someone to be wrong (e.g., (in)validity of a scientific theory), even when no money can be made out of it. The focus here is chiefly on financial conflicts of interest.
About this Website
This website is generally organized:
- by subject (on the Main Page, for example: research, marketing authorization, promotion, antitrust, transparency)
- by country (on the second-level pages: e.g., United States, European Union, Switzerland, International)
- by author (on the second-level pages: e.g., NIH, OIG, GAO).
The pages on this websites are long and rich in content. To find a specific document, use of the Internet browser's "search function" is recommended. You can use the sitemap.
At the beginning of each page as well as below each main heading, a list of subheadings is given. Clicking on an item on this list will give you direct access to the subheading of interest.
Clicking on a main heading will bring you back to the top of the page.
This website operates with external links, i.e. links to third parties' websites.
There is no control of the contents of these thrid parties' websites.
Some of the third parties' websites - particularly those of medical journals - are protected by passwords or require subscriptions.
Contact: click to send an email