ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how shifting university–industry–government boundaries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have created new challenges for the governance of conflicts of interest (COIs) in biomedical research. Through an analysis of the institutionalization of “translational medicine” in the United States, the chapter examines how translational medicine has deeply embedded values of industry and commercialization within academic biomedical research. I detail how translational medicine's focus on market-based solutions to problems in the bench-to-bedside pipeline has created a climate in which activities that once might have been categorized as controversial COIs are increasingly supported, encouraged, and E in academic biomedical research communities, as well as by the institutions and federal agencies that support such researchers. Finally, the chapter turns to look at the tensions created in traditional academic structures, such as publishing outlets, where new debates about COI reporting and its consequences have sparked controversy. I conclude by considering what challenges these new formations of university–industry–government relations in biomedical research present for managing COIs, and for upholding the scientific integrity of biomedical research.
