Pharmaceutical companies are known to be amongst the most profitable companies in the world. Proceedings of legal cases and published research provide insights into the nature of the influence of drug companies into research and publication practices relating to the drugs they manufacture, marketing disguised as ‘education’ and their influence on doctors who prescribe their drugs.

The influence of drug companies extends further to sponsorship of opinion leaders promoting their drugs and groups producing clinical guidelines. More rigorous regulation of the relationship between the industry and medicine is required.

Professor Jelinek and Dr Sandra Neate publish their findings on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in medicine in the October issue of the Journal of Law and Medicine.

You can read the full study here

The influence of the pharmaceutical industry in medicine