Academic-industry research relationships in genetics: a field apart.

Academic-industry research relationships (AIRRS) have become widely accepted and increasingly common in the life sciences. Using nationwide surveys from the United States, we found significant differences between the AIRRs of genetics firms and faculty and those of other firms and faculty. Significantly more genetics than non-genetics firms funded AIRRs, and genetics firms' AIRRs were larger and longer. Genetics faculty with AIRRs were significantly more likely than non-genetics faculty to report that patents, licenses, new companies and trade secrets had resulted from their university research; and that they had refused to share research results of biomaterials with colleagues.