Dollars for Profs
Dig Into University Researchers' Outside Income and Conflicts of Interest
Published Dec. 6, 2019
This database was last updated in December 2019 and should only be used as a historical snapshot. There may be new or amended records not reflected here.
Conflict of Interest
Institutions must file significant disclosures to the National Institutes of Health if they determine financial relationships could affect the design, conduct or reporting of the NIH-funded research. The NIH provided us with their entire financial conflict of interest database, with filings from 2012 through 2019.
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Michio Hirano
Columbia University Health Sciences, Department: Neurology
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Meves Pharmaceuticals
Other : Inventor's share of license payments received through Columbia University
Dr. Hirano is entitled to receive an inventor’s share of license fees and royalties through a license from Columbia University to Meves Pharmaceuticals. (Columbia’s Policy on Financial Conflicts of Interest and Research includes royalties above $5,000, even if received through the University, in the definition of “significant financial interest.”) The license relates to treatment of TK2 deficiency.
Dr. Hirano has not received any payment yet in connection with the license, but is expected to receive a payment in the next few months once the distribution percentage details of a Columbia license to Meves are finalized. Dr. Hirano’s payments, specifically his share of the upfront license fee, are expected to be approximately (b)(4). In light of these facts, Columbia has determined that the outcome of this research could affect the company and potentially Dr. Hirano’s royalty interest in the company, and that the design, conduct, and/or reporting of this research could be affected by this financial interest. The FCOI Committee found the risk of bias relatively low, but still determined there to be a conflict that warrants management.
Note that Dr. Hirano also is a consultant to Meves, but his consulting payments are restricted to (b)(4), and thus to do not alone reach the level of "significant financial interest."
MITOCHONDRIAL ENCEPHALOMYOPATHIES: APPROACHES TO TREATMENT
Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathies: Approaches to Treatment. Mitochondrial encephalomyopathies are a heavy public health burden and therapy is woefully inadequate. We are proposing therapy-directed studies for disorders associated with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) point mutations, especially mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS-3243), and for Mendelian disorders, including the mtDNA depletion due to TK2 deficiency and coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) deficiencies.
Filed on October 26, 2017.
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Notes: When a more specific filing date is not available for an individual financial disclosure or conflict of interest form, we use the year the form was filed. If the year was not disclosed, we report the range of years covered by our public records requests. In a few cases, a start date was provided instead of a filing date. In those cases, we use the start date instead.
Fewer than 10% of records from the University of Florida and fewer than 1% of records from the University of Texas system were removed because they did not contain enough information.
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