WEDNESDAY, Oct. 21, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Patient and consumer representatives advising U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert panels might actually be a Trojan horse for the pharmaceutical industry, a new study says.
These supposedly average-Joe representatives often have ties to advocacy organizations funded by drugmakers, researchers recently reported in the journal Health Affairs Scholar.
A 10-year review found that nearly 40% of FDA advisory committee meetings included at least one patient or consumer rep with active ties to such organizations.
Further, 1 in 10 drug review meetings included a representative affiliated with an organization receiving support from the drug company, results showed. The ties were often not disclosed, the report found.
“The relationships may represent a source of undue industry influence on advisory committees that the public — and in some cases, the FDA itself — may not be aware of,” lead author Genevieve Kanter said in a news release. She is an associate professor at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics in Los Angeles.
Previous studies have estimated that 68% of patient advocacy organizations and 83% of the largest patient organizations receive donations from drug, device and biotechnology companies, researchers said in background notes.
For the study, they reviewed nearly 240 meetings of 12 FDA advisory committees between 2013 and 2022. On average, each meeting included one patient representative and one consumer representative.
Except for the drug advisory committees related to skin or eye conditions, each FDA panel had at least one meeting with a patient representative tied to a pharma-funded advocacy group, researchers found. Advisory committees related to heart and kidney drugs had the greatest share of such meetings (52%).
And in four advisory committees, more than half of meetings had a consumer rep linked to a pharma-funded advocacy group, researchers said. These included the committees for nervous system drugs (89%), GI drugs (67%), heart and kidney drugs (61%) and arthritis (53%).
“Given how dependent some patient organizations are on industry support, it’s reasonable to question whether these relationships may affect how patient representatives vote,” added Kanter, who studies conflicts of interest at federal agencies. “Closer scrutiny from the FDA is likely warranted.”
The FDA might be aware of these relationships under draft guidance issued in 2016 that requires disclosure of financial ties that could create an appearance of conflict.
“This type of tie is not considered a conflict requiring recusal under Federal ethics laws but ‘may create the appearance that a member lacks impartiality,’ ” the research team wrote in its study.
More information
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on its advisory committees.
SOURCE: University of Southern California, news release, Oct. 19, 2026
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