Rowan University
IN-1: Academy-Industry Connections

Rowan University Policy - Managing Conflicts of Interest language that requires that all significant consulting contracts be reviewed for conflicts of interest:

Conflict-of-Interest Committee (COIC) is a Rowan University committee whose role is to review disclosures of significant interests (see definition below) and determine if these constitute a conflict of interest and, if so, to decide how such conflicts will be managed, reduced or eliminated.

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   1. The committee is appointed on an Ad hoc basis by the Vice President for Research or Senior Associate Research Deans. Representation will include the Senior Associate Dean for Research, Sponsored Programs Directors, Chief Research Compliance Officer, a member of the Rowan Privacy Compliance Office, General Counsel or Technology and Commercialization and will include faculty members and others, when necessary. The committee may have additional ad hoc members in order to appropriately assess the presence of a conflict based on individual disclosures.
   
   
   

Cooper Medical School of Rowan University’s Compendium of Student Policies for Faculty, Residents, and Staff provides language that prohibits industry-led “ghostwriting” or “ghost authorship” as the following:

Frequent Speaker Arrangements (Speakers Bureaus):

While one of the most common ways for CMSRU to disseminate new knowledge is through lectures, “speakers bureaus” sponsored by Industry may serve as little more than an extension of the marketing department of the companies that support the programming. Before committing to being a speaker at an Industry-sponsored event, careful consideration should be given to determine whether the event meets the criteria set forth in Section 2 of this policy, relating to Industry Sponsored Meetings. CMSRU personnel may not participate in, or receive compensation for, talks given through a speaker’s bureau or similar frequent speaker arrangements if any of the following are true:

a. Events do not meet the criteria of Section 2;

b. Content of the lectures given is provided by Industry or is subject to any form of prior approval by either representatives of Industry or event planners contracted by Industry;

c. Content of the presentation is not based on the best available scientific evidence;

d. Company selects the individuals who may attend or provides any honorarium or gifts to the attendees; and

e. Under no circumstances may CMSRU personnel be listed as co-authors on papers ghostwritten by Industry representatives. In addition, CMSRU personnel should always be responsible for the content of any papers or talks that they give, including the content of slides.

Speaking relationships with company or company event planners are subject to review and approval of the participant’s department chair, or dean as delineated in Section 4, Consulting Relationships.

Ghostwriting:

Under no circumstances may CMSRU personnel be listed as co-authors on papers ghostwritten by Industry representatives. In addition, CMSRU personnel should always be responsible for the content of any papers or talks that they give, including the content of slides.

Rowan University Policy – Managing Conflicts of Interest

Publication and Other Communications of Research Results

a. Contracts with research sponsors may not include provisions that prevent the investigator from independently accessing, examining, analyzing and interpreting the research data, or that restrict publication or other public communications of the methods, data and results of the research. Sponsors may be given up to thirty (30) days in which to review a manuscript, presentation or abstract that originates from the sponsored research prior to submission for publication or otherwise publicly communicated. Such review shall be limited to protection of confidential information furnished by the sponsor to the investigator, if any, or for the purpose of protection of patent or other intellectual property rights covered under the contract. The sponsor does not have the right to approve or consent to the publication or other communication of the research results.

b. In the event that the proposed publication or other communication contains patentable subject matter or confidential information, the University will, upon written request from the sponsor within the thirty (30)-day review period, delay the publication or other communication for a maximum of an additional sixty (60) days to allow the sponsor to file a patent application, or to modify the proposed publication or communication to delete sponsor-provided confidential information and/or to present the results in a manner that will not compromise such confidential information.

c. Publications should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals with regard to conflicts of interest.

d. In the case of multi-site clinical trials, the contract should state: how the results will be published; how authorship will be decided; how each investigator will have access to all data from all sites (and not simply to summary tables) in order to be able to analyze the full data independently if there is no multi-site publication within one year of the termination of the study; and that such one-year delay in publication or presentation of data results by the investigator can be waived if the investigator has a good faith belief that publication or presentation should not be delayed for reasons of public health, safety or public welfare.