The recent spate of high-profile retractions of biomedical papers by Japanese scientists is undermining the push by Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to strengthen medical research and innovation in the country (see go.nature.com/cznkrb). To stem this apparent proliferation of research misconduct, we suggest that Abe's government needs to reform relations between Japan's pharmaceutical industry and its health and medical community.

Several cases have involved medical schools that receive unrestricted funding from big Japanese drug companies. These include the Jikei Heart Study, in which data manipulation was implicated in the clinical trial of a blood-pressure drug (see Lancet 382, 843; 2013); the questionable procurement of patient data for a leukaemia drug by company employees (see J. McCurry Lancet 383, 2111; 2014); and criticisms of data handling in a large government-supported study on Alzheimer's disease (see D. Normile Science 345, 17; 2014).

There is also the infamous case of more than 100 papers by a Japanese anaesthesiologist that are now in the process of being retracted (see Nature 489, 346–347; 2012).

These worrying examples may be symptomatic of a deeper malady. As well as being under pressure to publish, biomedical researchers in Japan are having to rely increasingly on large donations from the pharmaceutical industry as government funding shrinks.

The prime minister's 'Abenomics' strategy for better health care requires a global, fair and competitive yet collaborative environment and partnership among stakeholders. It is therefore imperative that investigations into misconduct allegations are openly and formally conducted and that the lessons learned are used to limit further cases.