---
title: "Enabling equitable open access for commercially funded medical research"
id: "plos-medicine-0-enabling-equitable-open-access-to-commercially-funded-research-publications"
canonical_url: "https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/plos-medicine-0-enabling-equitable-open-access-to-commercially-funded-research-publications"
content_type: "clinical_feed_article"
specialty: "General"
source_name: "PLOS Medicine"
source_url: "https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207"
published_at: "2026-08-27T14:00:00.000Z"
evidence_level: "Journal Feed"
license: "CC-BY-NC-4.0 / Informational Use"
---
# Enabling equitable open access for commercially funded medical research
## Provenance & Clinical Metadata
- **Canonical URL:** https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/plos-medicine-0-enabling-equitable-open-access-to-commercially-funded-research-publications
- **Specialty:** [General](https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/general.md)
- **Primary Source:** PLOS Medicine
- **Source URL:** [Original Journal Publication](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207)
- **Published At:** 2026-08-27T14:00:00.000Z
- **Evidence Rating:** Journal Feed
## Executive GIST (TL;DR)
- Pharmaceutical companies fund a substantial proportion of biomedical research that affects disease understanding, treatment, and public health. - Many reputable journals restrict or deny **open access** options for articles reporting **commercially funded research**, even when fees are offered. - There is an ethical duty, reflected in the Declaration of Helsinki and WHO/UNESCO initiatives, to make results from human research publicly available. - Paywalls disproportionately affect healthcare professionals, guideline developers, researchers in low- and middle-income countries, community clinicians, patients, caregivers, and members of the public who lack institutional subscriptions. - Restricted access can impede evidence-based medicine, guideline development, AI-based evidence systems, and may drive reliance on less reliable information sources. - Pharmaceutical companies increasingly commit to publishing medically important trial results in reputable journals, and many are willing to pay for open access publishing. - Some journals offer only green open access (self-archiving of author manuscripts) while paywalling the **peer-reviewed version of record**; preprints are not a substitute for the version of record. - Historical skepticism toward for-profit research and documented cases of compromised practices contribute to restrictive journal policies, but disclosures, rigorous peer review, data sharing, and independent scrutiny mitigate integrity concerns. - The academic publishing industry is concentrated and commercially driven; protecting subscription revenue can result in clinically relevant, commercially funded research remaining behind paywalls. - Proposed solutions include new publishing models, transformative agreements, and funder-neutral open access policies that grant company-funded authors the same rights as other authors to publish open access. - The authors call on pharmaceutical companies and publishers to collaborate to implement funder-neutral policies and clearer self-archiving stances so company-funded clinical research is free to read and reuse from publication date.
## Clinical Analysis & Structured Key Points
[ Skip to main content ](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#main-content) Advertisement * [plos.org](https://plos.org/) * [Create account](https://community.plos.org/registration/new) * [Sign in](https://journals.plos.org/user/secure/login?page=%2Fplosmedicine%2Farticle%3Fid%3D10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1005207) * * About * Browse * Publish * [](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ "PLOS Medicine") * Search [advanced search](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/search) * 0 [Save](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#savedHeader) [Total Mendeley and Citeulike bookmarks.](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#savedHeader) * 0 [Citation](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#citedHeader) [Paper's citation count computed by Dimensions.](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#citedHeader) * 26 [View](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#viewedHeader) [PLOS views and downloads.](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#viewedHeader) * 0 [Share](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#discussedHeader) [Sum of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Wikipedia activity.](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#discussedHeader) Open Access Perspective Perspectives are commissioned from an expert and discuss the clinical practice or public health implications of a published study. The original publication must be freely available online. [See all article types » ](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/other-article-types) # Enabling equitable open access to commercially funded research publications * Anja Schmidt , * E-mail: anja.schmidt@takeda.com (AS); chris.winchester@pharmagenesis.com (CCW) Affiliation Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America [ ![ORCID logo](https://journals.plos.org/resource/img/orcid_16x16.png) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2304-8774 ](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2304-8774 "ORCID Registry") ⨯ * Christopher C. Winchester , * E-mail: anja.schmidt@takeda.com (AS); chris.winchester@pharmagenesis.com (CCW) Affiliation Oxford PharmaGenesis, Oxford, United Kingdom [ ![ORCID logo](https://journals.plos.org/resource/img/orcid_16x16.png) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3267-3990 ](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3267-3990 "ORCID Registry") ⨯ * Catherine Skobe, Affiliation Pfizer, New York, New York, United States of America [ ![ORCID logo](https://journals.plos.org/resource/img/orcid_16x16.png) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5220-2566 ](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5220-2566 "ORCID Registry") ⨯ * Diane R. Stothard, Affiliation Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America [ ![ORCID logo](https://journals.plos.org/resource/img/orcid_16x16.png) https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3524-6872 ](https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3524-6872 "ORCID Registry") ⨯ * Eric Topol Affiliation Scripps Research, La Jolla, California, United States of America ⨯ # Enabling equitable open access to commercially funded research publications * Anja Schmidt, * Christopher C. Winchester, * Catherine Skobe, * Diane R. Stothard, * Eric Topol ![PLOS](https://journals.plos.org/resource/img/logo-plos-full-color.svg) x * Published: August 27, 2026 * * [Article](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) * [Authors](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) * [Metrics](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) * [Comments](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/comments?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) * [Media Coverage](http://plos.altmetric.com/details/doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) * [Abstract](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#abstract0) * [Acknowledgments](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#ack) * [References](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#references) * [Reader Comments](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/comments?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207) Pharmaceutical companies fund much biomedical research, yet many journals restrict open access publishing options for peer-reviewed articles reporting commercially funded research. Expanded publishing options, such as funder-neutral publishing policies, will help address this inequity. **Citation:** Schmidt A, Winchester CC, Skobe C, Stothard DR, Topol E (2026) Enabling equitable open access to commercially funded research publications. PLoS Med 23(8): e1005207. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207 **Published:** August 27, 2026 **Copyright:** © 2026 Schmidt et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the [Creative Commons Attribution License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. **Funding:** The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. **Competing interests:** I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: AS is an employee and shareholder of Takeda. CCW is an employee, Director and shareholder of Oxford PharmaGenesis Ltd, a Director of Oxford Health Policy Forum CIC, a Trustee of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine and an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. CS is an employee and shareholder of Pfizer. DRS is an employee and shareholder of Eli Lilly and Company. AS, CS, and DRS are active participants in Open Pharma, of which CCW is a founder. EJT declares no competing interests. Pharmaceutical companies fund a substantial proportion of the biomedical research that directly affects disease understanding, treatment, and public health [[1](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref001)]. However, the peer-reviewed publications of these findings are often not freely available, because many journals limit or deny open access for commercially funded research. We argue that there is an ethical obligation to make clinical research conducted in humans freely and universally accessible to the public—however it is funded—through equitable open access to the peer-reviewed version of record. Access underpins public trust in science, and The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki recognizes that conducting research involving human participants carries an ethical duty to make the results publicly available [[2](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref002)]. Indeed, the World Health Organization is pursuing universal access to reliable healthcare information in collaboration with [Healthcare Information For All](https://www.hifa.org/) [[3](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref003)]. In addition, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science [[4](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref004)] encourages openness, transparency and collaboration, including sharing of knowledge, methods and data to improve the rigor, reliability, impartiality and societal impact of science. Sharing research methods and results advances science and healthcare as global public goods, yet much information remains behind the paywalls of reputable peer-reviewed academic journals. Paywalls may be minor budgetary issues for well-funded institutions but can create significant barriers to healthcare professionals, researchers, guideline developers and other stakeholders, especially those outside academic institutions, those in low- and middle-income countries and those in community settings. The power of evidence-based medicine relies on evidence availability, especially in an information system increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence. Healthcare professionals without access to institutional subscriptions may be unable to access the full-text research articles needed to inform their patient care, and restricted access to the literature base can limit the ability of healthcare professionals, guideline developers and policymakers to evaluate, validate and synthesize the full breadth of available evidence [[5](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref005)]. Patients, caregivers and the public can also lack free and easy access to medical research findings that directly affect their lives [[6](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref006)]. Clinical trial volunteers may not have access to peer-reviewed publications of the trial results; access to peer-reviewed publications and ideally to accompanying plain language summaries could enhance patient understanding of treatment options and public trust in healthcare. Barriers to accessing reliable, peer-reviewed evidence mean people may turn to potentially less reliable and/or less relevant sources of information and could be exposed to misinformation [[7](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref007)]. Pharmaceutical company research is part of a complex scientific and medical research and development ecosystem [[8](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref008)]. Regardless of how research is funded, shouldn’t the published findings from studies involving human volunteers be freely accessible to everyone, everywhere in the world? Is it appropriate that journal publishers, which are (with the exception of nonprofit publishers such as PLOS) also commercial entities, determine which research is freely available? Pharmaceutical companies are following public research funders in publishing open access. As part of their commitments, many pharmaceutical companies publish all medically important trial results in reputable peer-reviewed journals [[9](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref009),[10](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref010)]. But many high-impact journals do not offer commercial funders the same open access options as those offered to noncommercial research funders [[11](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref011)] despite pharmaceutical companies’ willingness to cover the associated fees. Some journals allow ’green’ open access (i.e., self-archiving) to the accepted author manuscript but paywall the published official peer-reviewed version of record. Although preprints provide a mechanism for early sharing of research findings, they are not a substitute for the peer-reviewed version of record, which remains essential for validated scientific communication and inclusion in clinical and policy decision-making. While journals sometimes provide free-to-read access to key articles relevant to global public health, this falls short of universal open access to clinical study publications in trusted journals. Why is universal open access to commercially funded research publications unrealized? The Open Science movement is strongly rooted in a not-for-profit ethos, and there has historically been skepticism towards for-profit research, sometimes justifiably so, owing to documented cases in which commercial interest influenced study design, data interpretation, publication practices and research independence in commercially funded research [[12](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref012)]. Nevertheless, potential conflicts of interest do not inherently compromise research integrity, and integrity concerns are mitigated through appropriate disclosures, rigorous peer review, data sharing and independent scrutiny of research outputs. Research from pharmaceutical companies now attains high standards of integrity and reporting, including publication in reputable peer-reviewed journals [[9](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref009),[10](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref010)]. Readers should always consider who has funded the research during their appraisal of outputs. However, the funding source should not determine whether or not research findings are freely and universally accessible. If rigorous, ethical and transparently reported, research should be judged on its merits rather than the funding source alone. Academic publishing is a multi-billion-dollar industry dominated by a small number of major players [[13](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref013)]. The success of noncommercial funders in requiring open access publication may paradoxically pressure journals to protect subscription fees by continuing to paywall commercially funded research. This often means that basic research is freely accessible, but research most relevant to healthcare is not. If publishers are gatekeepers of the scientific robustness of commercially funded research, then this is incompatible with their commercializing the resulting publications. Ethically, all scientific research findings should be universally accessible regardless of funding: the fruits of our shared human endeavor should be available to anyone who needs them, anywhere in the world. New publication models are needed to ensure that authors of commercially funded research have the same rights as other authors to publish open access in respected, high-quality, peer-reviewed journals. These models must sustain a healthy publishing ecosystem by upholding rigorous peer review standards and guarding against predatory publishing. Transformative agreements—which have been successfully used by academic institutions to combine subscription fees and article processing charges—could allow pharmaceutical companies to expand open access publishing without restricting journal choice for authors. The key issue remains that some journals do not allow open access for company-funded research publications, even when a fee is paid, despite the companies’ desire to make their research outputs available and universally accessible. Creativity is needed for a healthy future publishing ecosystem that meets all stakeholders’ needs. We call on pharmaceutical companies and publishers to work together towards equitable, worldwide open access to all peer-reviewed and published medical research findings for the sake of transparency, for the mission of collaborative scientific dialogue and for public health benefit. Specifically, we implore publishers to introduce funder-neutral open access policies and clearer positions on self-archiving of the version of record (i.e., green open access) to ensure all company-funded clinical research is free to read and reuse from the date of publication [[14](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207#pmed.1005207.ref014)]. ## Acknowledgments We thank Diana Pankevich and Seth James of Pfizer for their valuable comments on a previous draft of this article. We also thank Matt Cottingham, Sophie Nobes and Velissaria Vanna of Oxford PharmaGenesis for their contributions to this article. **Disclaimer** The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not represent those of their employers or other affiliated organizations unless otherwise stated. ## References 1. 1. Siena LM, Papamanolis L, Siebert MJ, Bellomo RK, Ioannidis JPA. Industry involvement and transparency in the most cited clinical trials, 2019-2022. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(11):e2343425. * [ View Article ](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.43425 "Go to article") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Industry+involvement+and+transparency+in+the+most+cited+clinical+trials%2C+2019-2022+Siena+2023 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 2. 2. World Medical Association. World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human participants. JAMA. 2025;333(1):71–4. * [ View Article ](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207 "Go to article in CrossRef") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=World+Medical+Association+Declaration+of+Helsinki%3A+ethical+principles+for+medical+research+involving+human+participants++2025 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 3. 3. Royston G, Pakenham-Walsh N, Zielinski C. Universal access to essential health information: accelerating progress towards universal health coverage and other SDG health targets. BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(5):e002475. pmid:32424012 * [ View Article ](https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002475 "Go to article") * [ PubMed/NCBI ](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32424012 "Go to article in PubMed") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Universal+access+to+essential+health+information%3A+accelerating+progress+towards+universal+health+coverage+and+other+SDG+health+targets+Royston+2020 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 4. 4. UNESCO. UNESCO recommendation on open science. 2021. Available from: * [ View Article ](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005207 "Go to article in CrossRef") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=++2021 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 5. 5. The PLoS Medicine Editors. The impact of open access upon public health. PLoS Med. 2006;3(5):e252. pmid:16719556 * [ View Article ](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030252 "Go to article") * [ PubMed/NCBI ](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16719556 "Go to article in PubMed") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+impact+of+open+access+upon+public+health++2006 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 6. 6. Day S, Rennie S, Luo D, Tucker JD. Open to the public: paywalls and the public rationale for open access medical research publishing. Res Involv Engagem. 2020;6:8. pmid:32161664 * [ View Article ](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-020-0182-y "Go to article") * [ PubMed/NCBI ](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32161664 "Go to article in PubMed") * [ Google Scholar ](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Open+to+the+public%3A+paywalls+and+the+public+rationale+for+open+access+medical+research+publishing+Day+2020 "Go to article in Google Scholar") 7. 7. Silburn A. Navigating online health information: empowerment vs. misinformation. 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