Harvard Medical School has announced on Wednesday that Dean Jeffery S. Flier is adopting the recommendations offered by a University committee to revise the prestigious school's policy on conflicts of interest between faculty and industry. Handling such conflicts of interest has been a hot topic lately, including recent recommendations by the American Association of Medical Colleges.

The Harvard University Faculty of Medicine Committee on Conflicts of Interest and Commitment spent a year developing the recommendations on the school's current Policy on Conflicts of Interest and Commitment. The recommendations will be implemented into the policy over the next year, according to a Harvard press release.

The executive summary of the Committee's recommendations states that faculty members are still allowed to conduct research sponsored or supported by industry, consult for industry, and serve on scientific advisory boards of pharma, device and biotech companies. Some of the key recommendations to change the current policy include:

--Disclosure of relevant faculty financial interests made public on the school's Catalyst website;

--Prohibition of faculty participation in an industry speakers bureau. In addition, faculty cannot be paid for speaking in an engagement which would significantly limit the faculty member's independence in presentation content;

--Industry funding of continuing medical education will be limited--with no one sponsor funding more than 50 percent of a course budget;

--Restriction on industry advertising and exhibition at a continuing medical education program;

--Prohibition on faculty receiving personal gifts, travel or meals from industry, other than travel and meals in allowed activities; and

--The school will review any faculty member's proposed participation on the fiduciary board of a business in biomedical commercial or research activities.

"At HMS, we have a proud history of unwavering commitment to high professional standards of ethical conduct," Flier said in the press release. "Within and outside industry, many recognize that industry and academia must seek a new model of academia-industry collaboration to achieve greater success at discovery and development of new treatments while fully protecting academic values and those of the medical profession. It is incumbent upon us to create a culture that is open to creative new approaches to collaboration on scientific development, based on transparency, rather than one that makes novel interactions more difficult."

Adapted in part from a Harvard Medical School press release, available here.

The full Committee report is available here.