Eli Lilly recently funded five studies that compared its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa with Risperdal, a competing drug made by Janssen.
All five showed Zyprexa was superior in treating schizophrenia.
But when Janssen sponsored its own studies comparing the two drugs, Risperdal came out ahead in three out of four.
In fact, when psychiatrist John Davis analyzed every publicly available trial funded by the pharmaceutical industry pitting five new antipsychotic drugs against one another, nine in 10 showed that the best drug was the one made by the company funding the study.
"On the basis of these contrasting findings in head-to-head trials, it appears that whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug," Davis and others wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Much more in The Washington Post
Insiders' view: This is a bit of a GOTBO (glimpse of the bleeding obvious) to anyone associated with Big Pharma. What do you think the Medical Affairs function does most of the time other than think up ways of tipping the balance in their products favour?
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