oops..Medical Journal Didn't Mention Author's Investments, Times Says
2003-08-03 13:17 (New York)
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The medical journal Nature Neuroscience
failed to disclose that the author of an article on depression
holds a patent for a treatment and owns shares in a company trying
to develop a therapy, the New York Times said.
Dr. Charles Nemeroff, a professor at the Emory School of
Medicine in Atlanta and lead writer of the article, said the
journal editors didn't ask him to disclose the potential conflicts
of interest in the November article.
The ties between pharmaceutical companies and researchers
have come under added scrutiny in recent years, the Times said.
The executive editors at Nature Publishing Group may change a
policy that requires authors to make such disclosures only when
articles describe original research. The journals are published by
London-based MacMillan Publishers Ltd.
Nemeroff didn't tell readers that he holds the patent on a
depression treatment he described favorably, a patch that delivers
lithium through the skin, the Times said. The doctor also didn't
say that he is a shareholder in Corcept Therapeutics Inc. and has
ties to Cypress Bioscience Inc., the newspaper said.
Corcep is a closely held Menlo Park, California, company
trying to develop the drug mifepristone into a treatment for
psychotic depression. Nemeroff was given options to pay $25 for
72,000 shares that would have been worth about $1 million if
Corcept had sold public stock as planned in late 2001, the Times
said, citing Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Cypress, whose drug milnacipran is being developed to treat
the chronic pain disorder fibromyalgia, paid Nemeroff $36,000 in
consulting fees last year and agreed to pay him $100,000 if he
helped Cypress succeed with the medication, according to the
Times. In the article, Nemeroff said drugs that work in a similar
way to milnacipran are more effective than other antidepressants. |
