TUESDAY, Oct. 27, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Patient and consumer representatives on U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committees frequently have ties to pharmaceutical industry-funded groups, according to a study published online Oct. 7 in Health Affairs Scholar.
Genevieve P. Kanter, Ph.D., from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues analyzed how often industry funding of advocacy organizations in which patient and consumer representatives were actively involved occurred in the year they attended FDA advisory committee meetings between 2013 and 2022.
The researchers found that during the study period, nearly 38 percent of FDA advisory committee meetings included a patient or consumer representative with active ties to a pharmaceutical industry-funded advocacy organization. However, for several FDA committees, this share was >50 percent. More than 1 in 10 advisory committee meetings (11 percent) included a representative affiliated with an organization receiving funds from the sponsor of the drug under review.
"Given how dependent some patient organizations are on industry support, it's reasonable to question whether these relationships may affect how patient representatives vote," Kanter said in a statement. "Closer scrutiny from the FDA is likely warranted."
