Drug Company Staff Fretted When In-house Paper’s Conclusion Clashed with Marketing Claims

The Lancet reports that when employees at the German drug firm Boehringer Ingelheim learnt that the conclusions of a company study clashed with a marketing claim that its new anticoagulant did not need monitoring, they sought to have the paper revised and even questioned whether it should be published at all, internal company documents released by a US court indicate. One employee complained that the paper would harm the company’s marketing efforts and make discussions with regulatory agencies more difficult. “Can’t this be avoided?” the employee asked.