Alan Schatzberg |
Stanford University's medical school is laden with conflicts of interest. Leading professors are producing favorable research results on medicines they will personally profit from.
If you are interested in this, our Mercury News colleague Paul Jacobs has just written up a lengthy expose of these conflicts. The main overview story is here (scroll down and you will see a list of other relevant links).
The case study of Stanford University psychiatrist Alan Schatzberg is particularly noteworthy. He is treating severely depressed patients with a repackaged version of RU-486, the controversial abortion pill. He has made millions, and has millions more at stake from a company (Corcept Therapeutics in Menlo Park) that has a drug in final trials at the Federal Drug Administration. Schatzberg promotes the drug publicly, saying it ``may be the equivalent of shock treatments in a pill'' without the side effects.
Yet peers are saying his research is shoddy, and that he hasn't provided any convincing statistical analysis. Reporter Jacobs does a really fair job on reporting both sides, and you're left on the edge of your chair waiting to see whether the FDA will really approve this -- something that may or may not happen this year. (If you go to the link above and scroll down, you will see other links relevant to the Schatzberg case).
It is a thriller. The company's stock has declined steadily since going public at the beginning of 2004, its future all resting on the pending results of the third phase of trials.
And coincidentally, we see news today about the same drug is working on rats in a seperate study by another scientist, results of which were revealed Sunday in Austria.
So don't write off Schatzberg (bio here) just yet. We'll be back to inform you of the decision.