PRIVATE RESEARCH GRANTS UP CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO UCLA STUDIES JUMP $20 MILLION IN PAST DECADE.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

Corporate research funding at UCLA has more than doubled in the past decade, according to a national report released Monday.

The analysis of grants from private biotech and pharmaceutical companies to 25 major academic institutions since 1992 found that private funding at UCLA rose from $14 million to about $34 million last year.

Ethicists, lawmakers and researchers involved in the report said the trend in California mirrors a national increase in industry-funded research, resulting in what one scientist described as ``unprecedented conflicts of interest.''

``Probably the most visible effect can be found in drug evaluations, because there's billions of dollars at stake every time a drug comes on the market,'' said Sheldon Krimsky, an environmental health professor at Boston's Tufts University, whose book ``Science in the Private Interest'' sparked Monday's report.

Fueled in part by declining federal funding for medical research, corporate investment in academic studies has doubled since 1980, Krimsky said.

He charged that universities have become ``private industry zones'' where scientists are more likely to withhold data from colleagues, companies block or delay the publication of unfavorable findings and results are biased toward pro-industry conclusions.

Officials with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group did not return a call seeking comment on the study. UCLA officials declined to comment Monday on the report.

About 5 percent of UCLA's total research and development funding comes from private companies, according to the study. That's on the low end compared with schools like Duke University, where 28 percent of all funding comes from industry, and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where 26 percent of research is privately funded.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, used the report to slam the Bush administration, charging an increase in members of federal advisory panels with close industry ties.

He also said Congress should consider more stringent disclosure laws for members of federal panels.

``It will never be possible to divorce entirely the scientific pursuit of knowledge from the pursuit of profit,'' Waxman said. ``But we must work to ensure that conflicts of interest do not unduly hinder scientific research and effective policy.''

In terms of the rise in private funding, UCLA ranked in the middle of the top 15 industry-funded universities with a 122 percent increase since 1992. At the top of the list was the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, which saw a 766 percent increase in private funding.

According to the National Science Foundation, from which the statistics were culled, the University of Southern California sees about $23 million in private research funding while Caltech receives about $6 million. Those universities, however, were not part of the national analysis.

Krimsky and University of California at Berkeley professor Dr. Tyrone Hayes called for a ``firewall'' between drug companies and the drug-testing process and urged the creation of an independent national drug-testing institute.

They also called for universities to adopt national standards on accepting private funding that prohibit contracts with companies that limit or restrict publication of research findings.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com