New economic analysis shows significant bias in clinical trials for psychiatric drugs, potentially influencing drug approvals.
Drug studies sponsored by drug manufacturers tend to report higher drug efficacy than studies not sponsored by the drug company, a new report published in the Journal of Political Economy on Oct. 7 finds.
The report found a “sponsorship effect” that tends to bias sponsored studies toward reporting higher drug efficacies.
New economic analysis shows significant bias in clinical trials for psychiatric drugs, potentially influencing drug approvals.
“My results suggest that sponsored arms of trials should be discounted substantially.” She said that the difference in results between sponsored and unsponsored trials may be that “manufacturers are running multiple trials and selectively publishing those that are more favorable towards their drug.” Even a small effect of bias by funding could affect the use of a drug, she noted.
“In head-to-head trials where Prozac was the drug of interest, significantly more patients improved on Prozac than in trials where Prozac was the comparator drug,” Gøtzsche told The Epoch Times.
Oostrom examined two main types of drug trials: drugs that are compared to placebos and drugs that are compared to other drugs.
Over the following 15 years, Wyeth funded 14 randomized controlled trials comparing Effexor’s effectiveness to its rival, Prozac.
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