AstraZeneca Ties To Nobel Foundation Questioned
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 15th, 2008 // 11:08 am
The drugmaker has sponsored two of Nobel Foundation subsidiaries - Nobel Media, which handles media rights for the prizes, and Nobel Webb, which manages the Nobel Prize site - and also has ties to individuals involved in awarding the Nobel Prize for Medicine, according to Swedish Radio and Badische Zeitgung.
The individuals Bo Angelin, a member of the Nobel Committee, sits on the AstraZeneca board, and Bertil Friedholm, representative of the Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institutet, reportedly held consulting contracts with the drugmaker in 2006. This year, the prize for medicine was awarded to Harald zur Hausen for the discovery of human papillomavirus, or HPV, and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune holds some patents on virus-like particles technology that form the basis of the Gardasil and Cervarix HPV vaccines. Published reports indicate an investigation may take place.
Meanwhile, an AstraZeneca spokesman sends us this: “AstraZeneca has signed an agreement with Nobel Media and Nobel Web to increase the public’s interest in and understanding of the accomplishments of the Nobel Prize winners of physiology and medicine. Our hope is that this collaborative effort will increase awareness of how medical breakthroughs and new treatments can improve patient health and quality of life.
Because the Nobel Committee of Karolinska Institute, and not the Nobel companies, elects candidates for the prize, AstraZeneca will not be able to influence who will be awarded the Nobel Prize, nor do we ever seek to.”
Hat tip to Bnet
Philip Rudnick
Since Big Pharma has financial ties to the bioethics institutions, the NIH, including the National Library of Medicine, the FDA, Congress and the Presidency of the United States, why shouldn’t it have financial ties to the Nobel Prize Foundation?
Question:
Can anyone cite ANY area of the Medical Establishment, Academic Medicine, or Healthcare
to which Big Pharma does not have financial ties?
Jack2
Yeah, it’s a shame that a company dedicated to developing new medicines can support an organization that awards a nobel prize in medicine. We should also crack down on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts - they actual get to decide who gets an Oscar! And don’t even get me started on the Intel awarding those scholarships at an engineering fair.
Michael
The award for HPV is not the only one that is tainted. The other half of the award went for HIV.
Nobel committee member Pr. Jan Andersson, the Nobel “Spokesperson” for the award, is on the payroll of GlaxoSmithKline since 1999 for hiv vaccines, and is founder of AVARIS, a Swedish company producing treatments and vaccine for hiv.
How convenient! Whatever sells hiv vaccine will benefit him directly!
He too, by the way, is also being investigated by the dept of corruption. That makes 3 out of 5 of the prize choosing members currently under suspicion of conflicts of interest and benefiting from the choice of awards.