‘Institutional Corruption’: Big Pharma Money Permeating Global Drug Regulators

Signage is seen outside of the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in White Oak, Md., on Aug. 29, 2020. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Though drug regulators were originally set up to regulate the drug industry, a new investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) shows that conflict of interest (COI) is pervasive within agencies globally. Pharmaceutical companies are the biggest funders of major regulatory agencies.

The study found some national drug agencies are almost exclusively reliant on pharmaceutical money, serving as a “prime example of institutional corruption,” said sociologist Donald Light in the study.

Drug Industry-Funded Drug Regulator

“Over the past decades, regulatory agencies have seen large proportions of their budgets funded by the industry they are sworn to regulate,” wrote the study’s author Dr. Maryanne Demasi, a medical investigative journalist.