Big Changes For Medical Studies Over The Past Decades

KYW Medical Reports Sponsored By Independence Blue Cross

By Dr. Brian McDonough, Medical Editor

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Research is the key to new developments and treatments in medicine and it is the lifeblood of advances.

But there have been big changes over the past decades concerning who is performing many of the studies.

According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the NIH and medical universities used to conduct the vast majority of studies but as funding has been reduced over the past decade, the number of trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry has dramatically increased.

NIH-funded trials decreased by about twenty percent in 2014 while industry trials increased by about thirty percent.

There are about 4 pharmaceutical studies for each NIH study.