Industry Funding by Itself is Not a Reason for Rating Down Studies for Risk of Bias.

Abstract

To evaluate how study characteristics and methodological aspects compare based on presence or absence of industry funding, Hughes et al. conducted a systematic survey of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in three major medical journals. The authors found industry-funded RCTs were more likely to be blinded, post results on a clinical trials registration database (ClinicalTrials.gov), and accrue high citation counts.¹ Conversely, industry-funded trials had smaller sample sizes and more frequently used placebo as the comparator, used a surrogate as their primary outcome, and had positive results.