NIH director defends industry-funded studies criticized by Elizabeth Warren

The director of the National Institutes of Health on Thursday defended the concept of industry-funded research, after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., warned that the agency runs the risk of bias when it leans on private funding this way.

Warren asked NIH Director Francis Collins during a Thursday hearing in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee why the agency still uses industry funding. She specifically bashed the Foundation for the NIH, which solicits donations from industries to fund research in their fields.