Secrecy shrouds taxpayer-supported research [New Jersey]

The church organist filled out a disclosure form.

So did the part-time bartender.

Both were required to disclose any jobs other than their positions with Rowan University, a state school.


Dr. Raphael Mannino, too, has employment beyond his public-sector position as an associate professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He's an executive with one biotech start-up company and a paid board member of another.

But there's no disclosure form on file for him with the state Executive Commission on Ethical Standards. And there are none on file for anyone else at UMDNJ, or at either of the state's two other research universities.

Mannino is just one example of a hole in the system that ensures public interests, not private ones, are served by those involved in taxpayer-supported medical research.

Secrecy is important to the biotech industry, in both its business and research incarnations. After all, this is a world where the sole ownership of ideas is the basis of profits.

The picture is more complicated on the public side of the biotechnology partnership.

In particular...