This analysis identifies relationships among medical education communication companies, funders, and publishers, highlighting industry funding impacts on research integrity.
Key Points
This research aims to analyze the role of medical education and communication companies (MECCs) in commissioned literature and their impact on research integrity.
Analyzed metadata of 29,911 commissioned papers from Web of Science (WoS).
Collected articles mentioning 'medical writing' and published by MECCs or in publication trackers.
Used semi-automated methods for data collection and reference list building for harmonizing organization names.
Only 33.6% of MECCs are listed as authors in commissioned papers.
18% of MECCs are acknowledged in publications on their websites and Industry Documents Library.
The medical writing market is competitive, with few sponsors outsourcing to many MECCs.