The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University

6. The Business of Drug Research: A Mixed Blessing

110 Chapter 6 The Business of Drug Research A Mixed Blessing Albert W . Musschenga, Wim J. van der Steen, and Vincent K. Y. Ho 1. Introduction Decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, the idea that science should be “socially relevant” had broad support, also among (university) scientists. Scientists should leave their ivory tower, stop doing science only for the sake of science, become aware of the impact of their research on society, and let the needs of society determine their research agenda. Critical scientists worked together, for example, with trade unions and environmental groups, but rarely with business corporations, which were assumed to act for their own interests rather than the interests of society . They held that socially relevant research (or public interest research) should be financed by the state. This view was based on two arguments (O’Neill 1998). First, as argued by leading economists, knowledge would be inappropriate as an object for exchange on the market because it represents a public good. The provision of public goods cannot be left to the market for risk of underprovision. Therefore it is a central task of the state (Arrow 1962; Dasgupta and David 1994). 111 The Business of Drug Research Second, property relations appropriate to the market would undermine good scientific practice. O’Neill mentions three further arguments supporting this claim. First, market mechanisms are incompatible with the open communication in science , which is a necessary condition for the growth of knowledge. Second, the market as an institutional framework for science dissociates the external rewards assigned to a contributor to science from the value of his or her contribution to the development of science. Third, private property in science is at odds with the practice of science (O’Neill 1998, 151ff). In the view that the state should finance universities and their scientific research, ideological and economical arguments converge. It implies that science and knowledge are a public interest and also a public good. Therefore, their provision should not be left to the market. Nowadays the ideological and the economical arguments are not taken for granted anymore. The idea of socially relevant research is still invoked, but the interpretation of social relevance has changed. Research is now (also) regarded as socially relevant when an organization—a business corporation, a public institution such as a ministry, or a nongovernmental organization—is willing to pay for it. In this view social relevance is (co-)determined by the market. The private interests of business corporations and nonprofit organizations on the one hand, and science and knowledge as a public interest on the other hand are no longer seen as mutually exclusive. Business corporations are willing to finance research if they expect that the results directly or indirectly lead to profitable products. Governmental and other nonprofit organizations commission research when they expect that its results may serve their goals and policies. Libertarian economists believe that the public good argument for state financing is no longer valid for sectors of research where the results can be protected by intellectual property rights (Cowen 1988). Although we are sympathetic to Sheldon Krimsky’s idea of the university as the place for public interest science (Krimsky 2003), we would not maintain that the market should never play a role in determining what socially relevant science is. However, two serious problems with contract research loom large. First, legitimate doubts exist about the scientific integrity of procedures and people involved in contract research. Second, sectors where researchers depend to a large extent on external funding do not bode well for basic research and research into social and cultural problems beyond the interest of market parties. We will illustrate these problems through a case study that concerns the role of pharmaceutical companies in medical research, especially research into drugs for the treatment of mental illness. Pharmaceutical companies finance about 112 Musschenga, van der Steen, and Ho 60 percent of medical research. They exert pressure on individual scientists, research groups, and universities to provide results that serve their interests. In some cases this results in violations of scientific integrity. To increase the demand for their products, pharmaceutical companies also attempt to influence the prescriptions by doctors, the expectations of patients, and treatment guidelines. These attempts , at least those by pharmaceutical companies in the United States, are well documented. We review them in section 2. The influence of contractors on the...