Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein

Hospital officials also told the center’s staff that the executive board had made permanent a series of reforms designed to limit the ways in which its top executives and leading researchers could profit from work developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a nonprofit with a broad social mission that admits about 23,500 cancer patients each year.

The conflicts at Memorial Sloan Kettering, unearthed by The New York Times and ProPublica, have had a rippling effect on other leading cancer institutions across the country. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, both of whose executives sit on corporate boards, are among the institutions reconsidering their policies on financial ties.

In the wake of reports about board memberships held by Memorial Sloan Kettering officials last fall, Dr. Craig B. Thompson, the hospital’s chief executive, resigned in October from the board of Merck, the maker of the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, which had paid him about $300,000 in 2017 for his service.

The announcement Friday was one of several steps the cancer center said it was considering as part of an institutionwide overhaul of its corporate relationships and conflict-of-interest policies. The cancer center has hired Deloitte as well as two law firms, Ropes &amp; Gray and Debevoise &amp; Plimpton, to help conduct its reviews.

Debra Berns, the center’s chief risk officer, also said in an email to employees that the hospital’s Board of Overseers and Managers formalized a policy enacted last fall that prohibits board members from investing in startup companies that Memorial Sloan Kettering helped to found. In addition, it also prevents hospital employees who represent Memorial Sloan Kettering on corporate boards from accepting personal compensation, like equity stakes or stock options, from the companies.

Dr. Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh, called the policy changes a “watershed moment.”

“This is highly significant, especially at such a high-profile academic center,” Gellad said in an email. “Leadership matters, and the institution has decided that their leaders should not also be concurrently leading for-profit health companies.”

When doctors enter into financial relationships with companies, the concern is that these ties can shape the way studies are designed and medications are prescribed to patients, potentially allowing bias to influence medical practice. A 2014 study in JAMA found that about 40 percent of the largest publicly traded drug companies had a leader of an academic medical center on their boards.

Berns said the Memorial Sloan Kettering board’s policy decision was intended to emphasize the hospital’s focus on education, research and treatment of patients. Dr. Nadeem R. Abu-Rustum, who is president of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s medical staff, said the policy changes were “well-received” by employees.

Memorial Sloan Kettering has been shaken by the unfolding series of conflicts of interest since September, when The Times and ProPublica reported that its chief medical officer, Dr. José Baselga, had failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health care companies in dozens of articles in medical journals.

Baselga resigned days later, and he also stepped down from the boards of the drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and Varian Medical Systems, a radiation equipment manufacturer. Earlier this month, AstraZeneca announced that it had hired Baselga to run its new oncology unit.

Additional reports detailed how other top officials had cultivated lucrative relationships with for-profit companies, including an artificial intelligence startup, Paige.AI, that was founded by a member of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s executive board, the chair of the pathology department and the head of a research lab. The hospital struck an exclusive deal with the company to license images of 25 million patient tissue slides that had been collected over decades.

Another article detailed how a hospital vice president was given a stake of nearly $1.4 million in a newly public company as compensation for representing Memorial Sloan Kettering on its board.

When news of Baselga’s disclosure lapses first became public, 12 doctors and researchers at the hospital served on the boards of publicly traded companies. The number has now dropped to nine.

On Oct. 1, some doctors at the hospital called for a no-confidence vote in Thompson’s leadership and questioned whether the industry relationships were jeopardizing the hospital’s mission.

No such vote was taken, but a day later, Thompson stepped down from the boards of Merck and Charles River Laboratories, which assists in early drug development.

The hospital task force is expected to release draft recommendations in February and will solicit feedback from employees, Berns said in the memo released Friday. The review is also expected to examine faculty membership on corporate boards, participation on companies’ scientific advisory boards, and doctors’ and researchers’ consulting relationships with drug and health care companies.

Memorial Sloan Kettering will also host a symposium in February on disclosing conflicts of interest in medical journals, in what Berns described as “a first step toward developing a common framework that harmonizes financial disclosures in research publications.”

Berns delivered details of the review at a medical staff meeting Friday morning that was also attended by Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, the hospital’s acting physician-in-chief. During the meeting, DeAngelis sought to reassure employees that hospital leaders were taking their concerns seriously while also defending the hospital’s reputation as a world-renowned cancer center, according to accounts of the meeting.

At one point, according to the accounts, DeAngelis celebrated recent good news for the institution, including the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a new cancer drug, Vitravki, developed at the hospital.

She also cited internal research that she said showed Memorial Sloan Kettering’s treatment of the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had received positive press that overshadowed the recent conflict-of-interest coverage.

Ginsburg is recovering from cancer surgery on her left lung that was performed at the center. The Supreme Court announced Friday that she was still recovering and would not be on the bench next week, but that there was no evidence of any more cancer.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/science/memorial-sloan-kettering-conflicts-boards.html" id="520a0d91-766f-3340-ad88-76b9b91842f5">The New York Times</a>.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives' Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s leading research institutions, announced Friday that it would bar its top executives from serving on corporate boards of drug and health care companies that, in some cases, had paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

In the wake of reports about board memberships held by Memorial Sloan Kettering officials last fall, Dr. Craig B. Thompson resigned in October from the board of Merck, the maker of the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, which had paid him about $300,000 in 2017 for his service.

Hundreds of doctors packed an auditorium at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Oct. 1, deeply angered by revelations that the hospital’s top medical officer and other leaders had cultivated lucrative relationships with for-profit companies.

One by one, they stood up to challenge the stewardship of their beloved institution, often to emotional applause. Some speakers accused their leaders of letting the quest to make more money undermine the hospital’s mission. Others bemoaned a rigid, hierarchical management that had left them feeling they had no real voice in the hospital’s direction.

“Slowly, I’ve seen more and more of the higher-up meetings happening with people who are dressed up in suits as opposed to white coats,” said Dr. Viviane Tabar, chairwoman of the neurosurgery department.

“The corporatization of this institution is clear to many of us who have been here a long time,” said Dr. Carol L. Brown, a gynecologic cancer surgeon, according to an audio recording of the meeting.

The meeting ended after several doctors advocated an immediate no-confidence vote in the hospital’s senior leadership. The turmoil followed reports by The New York Times and ProPublica that the hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr. José Baselga, had been paid millions by drug and health care companies and failed to disclose those ties more than 100 times in medical journals, and that hospital insiders had made lucrative side deals that stood to earn them handsome profits, sometimes for work they had done on the job.

The day after the meeting, the hospital’s chief executive, Dr. Craig B. Thompson, promised greater openness with rank-and-file doctors about decision-making. He also committed to doing the “root-cause analysis” requested by the doctors of how “egregious conflicts of interest,” as one physician put it, had been allowed to happen.

Other hospitals around the country are confronting similar dilemmas. But at Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the nation’s leading cancer research and treatment centers, they are especially acute. Internal emails, audio recordings of meetings and interviews with doctors show how this major New York institution has struggled to contain a crisis of confidence in its leadership.

Closer ties between nonprofit research centers like Memorial Sloan Kettering and corporations are being fueled by a rush of potentially breakthrough cancer treatments. Venture capital firms and drug companies have looked to cash in on the scientific discoveries, said Brad Loncar, founder of an investment fund that focuses on cancer. “Money follows success,” he said, and Memorial Sloan Kettering has been a focus “because they conduct terrific science there.”

In recent years, the hospital, like its competitors, has struck increasingly sophisticated deals to commercialize its discoveries, in some cases receiving equity stakes in startups rather than simply collecting royalties.

The predicament of Memorial Sloan Kettering also reflects a shift in its own culture. Its prior chief executive, Dr. Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel-prize winning scientist, personally kept companies at arm’s length, while Thompson, also a respected cancer researcher, has more fully embraced such relationships. The new approach has been applauded by some for expanding access to the cancer center’s discoveries, even as others have worried that the hospital may be losing sight of its mission.

Its leaders and top researchers also hold influential positions in the corporate world. When news of Baselga’s disclosure lapses broke in September, 12 doctors and researchers at the hospital served on the boards of publicly traded companies, more than at any other major cancer center, according to a review by The New York Times and ProPublica. Baselga has since resigned from the hospital and the two boards he served on. And a day after the physicians’ meeting on Oct. 1, Thompson resigned from the boards of the pharmaceutical giant Merck and Charles River Laboratories, a health care company, that together had paid him $585,050 in compensation in 2017.

The concern of ethicists and health experts is that a bias in favor of industry can unduly influence scientific research and medical treatments and remove a valuable check on soaring drug prices.

“We do have to sort of decide which side of this we’re on, or at least notice that we are feeding at the very trough that is causing worse access here than in any other Western country,” Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the hospital’s Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, said at the Oct. 1 meeting.

The problems at Memorial Sloan Kettering have shaken other cancer centers. At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, officials have said they are considering whether Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, their chief executive, and others should continue to serve on the boards of publicly traded companies, including the drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, on whose board Glimcher sits.

At the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, a task force is reviewing the conflict-of-interest policies that govern employees’ financial relationships to drug companies. And medical centers around the country have instructed researchers to review their financial disclosures to medical journals, leading to a series of corrections to scientific articles.

Even as Memorial Sloan Kettering leaders have promised greater transparency, they have engaged a public affairs firm, SKDKnickerbocker, to manage their message and have aggressively pushed back against the idea that the hospital’s leaders are too close to industry.

“I can see how someone might think that business relationships are problematic,” said Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, who has stepped into Baselga’s former position at Memorial Sloan Kettering on an acting basis. “But I’m telling you, as someone who works with patients, and I’ve worked with patients throughout my entire career here, that working with industry has helped me save lives.”

The Times and ProPublica asked to speak to Tabar and Brown about the critical remarks they made about the hospital’s direction at the Oct. 1 meeting. Mike Morey, managing director of the communications firm engaged by the hospital, arranged for them to speak to reporters on the phone while he listened. The doctors said they were not specifically referring to Memorial Sloan Kettering during the meeting that was recorded by one of those in attendance, but to broader changes in the medical world.

— Defining an Institution’s Role

Founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering was the first hospital in the country devoted exclusively to treating cancer. Its benefactors have included some of the wealthiest families in America, from the Astors and Rockefellers in its early years to the Kochs today.

It now operates more than 120 research laboratories, employs more than 1,000 doctors, admits some 23,500 patients a year, operates one of the world’s largest clinical trial programs and had revenues of nearly $4.5 billion in 2017. It recently completed a $3.5 billion fundraising drive and its charity ball remains a fixture on New York’s social calendar.

As a leading force in cancer research, the hospital has long grappled with striking a balance in its collaborations with drug companies. While it did business with industry during the tenure of Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, he and a top deputy, Dr. Robert E. Wittes, did not consult for companies, own their stock or serve on their boards, according to several people who worked for Varmus while he was at the hospital from 2000 to 2010. Varmus and Wittes declined to comment.

But some on the hospital’s board wanted its chief executive to do more to encourage company-financed clinical trials and to bring discoveries to market. In an interview, John R. Gunn, the cancer center’s chief operating officer from 1987 to 2015, said board members felt gems of research were “lying fallow and nobody was kind of pushing it, to commercialize it.”

By the time Varmus left to direct the National Cancer Institute in 2010, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s board was looking for a leader who was as comfortable in a corporate board room as in the lab, according to several longtime current and former cancer center employees.

Thompson met that criteria. He headed the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, was the co-founder of a biotech startup, Agios, and served on the board of Merck.

His early tenure was marred by controversy. In 2011 and 2012, he was sued by his former employers, the Abramson center and the University of Pennsylvania, which accused him of walking off with valuable research and using it to start Agios. At the time, Thompson denied wrongdoing and the suits were later settled for an undisclosed sum.

In 2012, Thompson hired Baselga to be the top physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Baselga, who had made his name as a key investigator of the breast cancer drug Herceptin, was also seen as having bridged the worlds of research and industry. DeAngelis, the hospital’s acting physician-in-chief, said that under Baselga, clinical trials were approved more quickly, helping speed treatments to patients.

But several doctors who worked under Baselga said in interviews that he had an abrasive style and created a culture where ties to industry were not kept in check. Baselga has not responded to requests for comment.

In his years at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Baselga’s personal financial conflicts were handled differently from those of other doctors, according to Dr. Clifford A. Hudis, who was chairman of the hospital’s conflict-of-interest advisory committee through early 2016, when he left to become chief executive of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Baselga’s conflicts were not overseen by Hudis’ committee, but by the audit committee of the hospital’s board of directors. “I was told this was pretty standard for the highest level executives,” said Hudis. “I didn’t understand why any clinician would have separate rules from any other.”

Morey said the hospital is evaluating its process for reviewing conflicts of interest, but that executives like Baselga had their financial relationships overseen by the board “to protect faculty from being put in a position of having to review their supervisor’s potential conflicts.”

Baselga is not the only leading researcher to have maintained extensive ties to the drug and health care companies — as some also did under Varmus. Dr. Jedd Wolchok, a noted pioneer in immunotherapy, has financial relationships with more than 30 companies, according to recent disclosures.

Dr. Charles L. Sawyers, another of the hospital’s biggest names, has founded several cancer startups, one of which Memorial Sloan Kettering has invested in, and serves on the board of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

Ethicists and health experts say having leaders and researchers at nonprofit hospitals sit on corporate boards is especially problematic. When they serve on the board of a publicly traded company, they have a legal duty to the corporation and its shareholders, which can clash with their duty to their patients and primary employers. Those who sit on boards are often paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

“I don’t think you can serve two masters,” said Dr. Bernard Lo, who led an influential Institute of Medicine panel in 2009 that investigated financial conflicts in medicine. “The whole reason for being in the cancer care business is that you’re trying to help people in need, and that’s not at all the company’s main purpose. It’s to generate profits on their products.”

A report in November in BioPharma Dive found that 12 of the 19 largest pharmaceutical and biotech companies had at least one board member who also worked at a nonprofit health care institution. A 2014 study in JAMA found that about 40 percent of the largest publicly traded drug companies had a leader of an academic medical center on their boards.

Robert Benezra, who heads a lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering that focuses on how tumors grow, is the president, chief executive officer and a board member of AngioGenex, a tiny, publicly traded biotech that is developing drugs to treat cancer based on the discoveries made in his lab.

Though he takes no salary from AngioGenex, Benezra owns nearly 9 percent of the company he helped found through stock or options, setting him up for a lucrative payday if the company is acquired or its drugs come to market.

In 2017, Benezra wrote AngioGenex shareholders that a recent policy and leadership change at the hospital “afforded me the freedom to assume a more active role in the company” and to recruit other Memorial Sloan Kettering scientists to work with the company.

Benezra said in a statement issued through the hospital, “While I do not work directly with patients, I hope that this important science can one day make an impact in the lives of cancer sufferers.”

Morey said Benezra spends just 30 hours a year on business related to the publicly traded company. “We’re talking about 45 minutes a week, which is less than what most people spend on Netflix in a night,” Morey said.

DeAngelis, the acting physician-in-chief, said the high number of Memorial Sloan Kettering leaders who serve on corporate boards is reflective of their stature. “Maybe we should turn this around and say, we have more people on corporate boards because people value the opinions from our faculty,” she said in an interview.

— A Staff in Turmoil

Tensions among doctors at the hospital over conflicts of interests mounted through September. On Sept. 28, Colin Begg, chairman of its department of epidemiology and biostatistics, wrote other department heads. “The key substantive issue is that the problems we face were not caused by failures to disclose conflicts. The problems were due to the conflicts themselves,” he wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Times and ProPublica.

Referring to Thompson and Douglas A. Warner III, the outgoing chairman of the hospital’s board of managers and overseers, who is known as Sandy, he said, “As far as I can tell neither Sandy nor Craig understand this very basic point. And if you don’t recognize that a problem exists there is no chance you will solve it.”

He also said, “Making billions is not our mission. MSK is a nonprofit with a fundamentally social mission.”

Shortly before the doctors met on Oct. 1, Thompson sounded a conciliatory note. “I want to start by apologizing to the medical staff on behalf of myself and the rest of senior management,” he said, according to a draft transcript of the staff meeting. “The events of the last few weeks have not been handled as well as I would have liked.”

Warner also addressed the doctors, informing them that the board was assessing whether Thompson should remain on Merck’s board.

“Should Craig continue to sit on the Merck board? We have no policy on that,” Warner said, according to the transcript, noting that Thompson’s role on the board was initially seen as a “good thing” when he joined the hospital. “We need to step back from that now and ask ourselves whether that continues to be appropriate, whether it’s appropriate in the future.”

The next day, Oct. 2, Thompson announced that he was resigning from both the boards on which he served.

Requests to interview Thompson and Warner were declined. Instead the hospital arranged for reporters to speak to DeAngelis, who said she saw nothing wrong with the corporate ties that Thompson had earlier said were under review.

She downplayed the concerns voiced by Begg about the culture of the hospital. “He is a biostatistician. He does not work with patients. He works with data,” she said, adding that he does not have “as full an understanding” about policies to prevent doctors with corporate ties from having an undue influence on clinical trials.

Thompson and two deputies, including DeAngelis, sent a note to hospital doctors on Dec. 20, warning them about this article. While it mentioned the ongoing review, it offered a full-throated defense of those serving on corporate boards.

“We expect the piece to question the ethics of some of our most accomplished researchers and clinicians. We want you to know that we reject these insinuations and we stand behind our faculty 100 percent.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/health/memorial-sloan-kettering-conflicts.html" id="871df1e7-ce3c-3976-ac7a-6ca321f943a7">The New York Times</a>.

Memorial Sloan Kettering's Season of Turmoil

(Science Times)

The American Association for Cancer Research, which publishes the journal, said a panel of experts and the group’s board of directors had concluded that “Dr. Baselga did not adhere to the high standards pertaining to conflict of interest disclosures that the AACR expects of its leadership.”

“Consequently, Dr. Baselga was asked to resign from his role at the journal,” said a statement sent to the association’s members.

Baselga, a prominent figure in the world of cancer research, had helped found the journal and served as an editor for the past eight years. The AACR, which he formerly led as president, concluded that his omissions were inadvertent and said it would allow Baselga to continue publishing in its journals.

“Dr. Baselga is a valued member of the AACR with acknowledged expertise in clinical and translational cancer research,” Dr. Margaret Foti, the group’s chief executive, said in the statement.

Baselga’s disclosure lapses have prompted a broader discussion over the influence of the drug and health care industries on medical research, including whether journals should do a better job of ensuring that researchers accurately report their corporate ties. Teaching hospitals across the country have reminded faculty of their obligation to disclose, and some have begun re-examining which relationships are appropriate.

Baselga resigned as chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering in September after The New York Times and ProPublica reported that he had failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from health care companies in dozens of research articles. He also resigned from the boards of the drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and Varian Medical Systems, a maker of radiation equipment.

Contacted for comment, Baselga provided the resignation letter he sent to the AACR. In it, he thanked the cancer organization for its “deliberate and thorough review” and said he takes “great heart from the panel’s finding that my failure to disclose was inadvertent. I understand, however, that the situation made it difficult for me to continue in a leadership role.”

Baselga, 59, is an expert in breast cancer research and played a key role in the development of Herceptin by Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche. He came to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2013 after serving as chief of hematology and oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Before that, he was a leader at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain.

Since September, Baselga has corrected his conflict-of-interest disclosures in several journals, including two in the New England Journal of Medicine, three in Clinical Cancer Research, five in JAMA Oncology, and two in Cancer Discovery.

In a note that accompanied Baselga’s correction in the New England Journal of Medicine, editors described his failure as a “breach of trust.”

Baselga also revised disclosures with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which said that Baselga’s participation in future meetings will be contingent on a review of his presentation slides and that his sessions would be monitored for evidence of bias.

The group also said that if Baselga did not disclose his interactions in the future, he would be barred from participating in any meetings sponsored by ASCO for two years.

ProPublica and The Times found that Baselga had failed to report any industry ties in 60 percent of the nearly 180 papers he had published since 2013. That figure increased each year — he did not disclose any relationships in 87 percent of the journal articles that he co-wrote last year.

The AACR said its panel of experts will continue to look at conflict-of-interest disclosures, including how to “best harmonize such disclosures and provide greater clarity around these issues.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/health/baselga-cancer-conflict-disclosure.html" id="97d76550-7e60-3d1c-ab07-0678efdde852">The New York Times</a>.

Dr. José Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, resigned under pressure Wednesday as one of the editors-in-chief of Cancer Discovery, a prominent scientific journal, after he failed to accurately disclose his conflicts of interest in dozens of articles in medical journals.

Top Cancer Doctor Resigns As Editor of Medical Journal

<h1>Dr. José Baselga, who resigned his position as the top doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York after failing to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug companies, is now going to work for one of them.</h1>

AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish drugmaker, announced Monday that it had hired Baselga as its head of research and development in oncology, a newly created unit that reflects the company’s shift toward cancer treatments, one of the hottest areas in the drug industry.

In a statement, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, described Baselga as “an outstanding scientific leader.” “José's research and clinical achievements have led to the development of several innovative medicines, and he is an international thought leader in cancer care and clinical research,” he said.

Baselga stepped down in September from his role as chief medical officer at the cancer center after The New York Times and ProPublica reported that he had failed to accurately disclose his conflicts of interest in dozens of articles in medical journals. He later resigned from the boards of drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and radiation equipment manufacturer Varian Medical Systems.

Although Memorial Sloan Kettering has said that Baselga was not fired, hospital leaders have indicated that he was forced out. In October, Douglas A. Warner III, then the chairman of the cancer center’s board, told the staff that Baselga’s actions “left us no choice.”

In December, the American Association for Cancer Research said that Baselga, at its request, had resigned his post as one of two editors-in-chief of its medical journal Cancer Discovery because he did “not adhere to the high standards” of conflict-of-interest disclosures that the group expects of its leaders. Some of his omissions involved articles that were published in Cancer Discovery while he was an editor-in-chief.

A spokesman for AstraZeneca said Baselga was not available for comment, but the doctor told Reuters on Monday that he took responsibility for his disclosure lapses. He also said the cancer association had concluded his failures were “inadvertent,” and said many of his company relationships were publicly available on a federal database of physician payments by drug and device manufacturers. However, some of the relationships that Baselga failed to disclose were with small biotech startups that are not required to report to the federal government.

“Dr. Baselga is one of the best scientists in the field of oncology,” said spokesman Gonzalo Viña. “We evaluated the series of inadvertent omissions, which have since been addressed, and it is not for us to comment about the previous roles he held.”

AstraZeneca paid Baselga $28,750 for consulting work in 2013 and 2014 related to unspecified drugs, according to the federal database. He failed to disclose any relationships with companies, including AstraZeneca, in dozens of articles in recent years.

Since September, Baselga has corrected his conflict-of-interest disclosures in several journals, including in The New England Journal of Medicine and in Cancer Discovery. In a note that accompanied Baselga’s correction in The New England Journal of Medicine, editors described his failure as a “breach of trust.”

AstraZeneca’s decision to hire Baselga is part of an effort by the drugmaker to focus more directly on cancer research, which has generated extensive interest from investors and companies in recent years amid a series of breakthroughs. The company sells several cancer drugs, including lung cancer drug Tagrisso and Lynparza, which treats a number of cancers. It has suffered some recent setbacks, such as a failed trial of its lung cancer drug Imfinzi.

Under the company’s new structure, Baselga will oversee the development of cancer drugs from early research to late-stage clinical trials, and a separate research unit will focus on other disease areas. Each unit will have its own commercial team to promote the products.

“This new structure will support growth and sharpen the focus on our main therapy areas, speeding up decisions and making us more productive in our mission to bring innovative medicines to patients,” Soriot said in the statement.

In the same statement, Baselga described his new role as a “dream job” and said the reorganization will “accelerate our work to bring transformative medicines to patients.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="b31f199a-9d29-42a0-a615-acbb9b9f5639" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/health/baselga-sloan-kettering-astrazeneca.html">The New York Times</a>.

Top cancer doctor, Forced out over ties to drugmakers, joins their ranks

In a statement, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, described Baselga as “an outstanding scientific leader.”

Top cancer doctor, forced out over ties to drugmakers, joins their ranks

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Katie Thomas and Charles Ornstein

Articles written by the author

Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives' Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals

Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives' Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals

Memorial Sloan Kettering's Season of Turmoil

Top Cancer Doctor Resigns As Editor of Medical Journal

Top cancer doctor, forced out over ties to drugmakers, joins their ranks