With the requirement of biopharmaceutical/vaccine/medical device industry companies to comply with the aspects of Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIA) regarding publications, plus all the other policies and guidelines from a variety of organisations, some might consider little need for a medical communications agency to develop its own position statement.
We view things differently.
We have many clients who have very clear policies for ensuring appropriate author engagement and full disclosure of data, sponsor funding, potential conflicts of interest and third-party support (such as professional medical writing). However, we have encountered other companies who do not have such a good grasp of proper publication development practices – some who also had little interest in (what they saw as) ‘optional’ guidelines such as GPP3. As proponents of the highest ethical standards in publication development, and long-term supporters of the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals, we cannot work with companies that risk their own business, and ours, by inappropriate actions in the publications space.
Therefore, we developed its own position statement on the publication of company-sponsored data in the biomedical literature, which describes the principles that CMC adheres to as a business. We tell new clients that if our principles are not aligned with their perspective on publication development, then we are probably not the right agency for them.
