basel

The Swiss pharmaceutical industry appears to be taking a lead from public research institutions in Germany in making information about potentially embarrassing situations involving scientific fraud more readily available to the public.

Last week, Novartis reported that a scientist had been dismissed from its research department in Basel. In a recent routine internal investigation, the company found the researcher had continuously manipulated preclinical results in a cancer research project.

The research project is being conducted with California-based Isis Pharmaceuticals, and includes testing anticancer compounds on xenografts of human tumours in animals. A spokesman says that this is the first such case to have emerged since Novartis was created two years ago by the merger of two large Swiss drug companies, Ciba and Sandoz.

The company is planning further investigations to determine what it describes as the “total damage” caused by the scientist. But it says it is not considering any additional routine control of researchers. Novartis and Isis will continue the joint project. “We have sufficient data and tests which are unaffected by the incident,” says the spokesman.