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Surgeon calls for re-evaluation of academia-industry research relationship
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WAILEA, Hawaii — In the ever-changing world of ophthalmic research and especially in light of combination therapies in retina, one surgeon here reminded his peers that the research relationship between academia and industry requires constant examination.
 Steven Schwartz |
"Progress in modern scientific research is achieved predominantly by collaborative teamwork," Steven Schwartz, MD, said at Retina 2009. "We achieve this on a regular basis, but it gets more complex when industry is involved."
Dr. Schwartz explained that combination therapy research is closely tied with industry as physicians try to find the ideal partnership between two or more treatments to achieve effective resolution of chronic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. He said all parties involved need to understand the context and motivation of the collaboration, apply independent diligence for a personalized perspective and maintain independent standards to produce the best and most reliable results.
"If you read the editorials in journals, you'll see debates in the editorial pages and there's no easy answer," he said. "Understanding the contrasts, getting the perspective on what we're dealing with here as we try to design and interpret and then, most importantly, incorporating this research into our practice are really tricky."