AstraZeneca's Nobel link not a conflict of interest

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca has found itself facing claims of a "conflict of interest" over the award of a Nobel Prize in medicine to  the German scientist who discovered the human papillomavirus (the causal  agent in cervical cancer). The allegations, which have led the Swedish  Corruption Authority to admit to a "preliminary" investigation, appear  to have been started by skeptics who deny that AIDS is caused by HIV.

Harald zur Hausen, the HPV discoverer, shared the Medicine prize with  two French scientists who played a key role in identifying the role of  HIV: Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre Sinoussi.

The main beneficiaries of Dr zur Hausen's work are the HPV vaccine  manufacturers USA-based Merck & Co and the UK's GlaxoSmithKline, for  Gardasil and Cervarix, respectively. AstraZeneca's interest is "tenuous  at best," according to an article in the Scientific American, which  noted that the firm had taken over US biotechnology company MedImmune in  2007. The latter's development of virus-like particle technology allowed  it to collect $236.0 million in worldwide royalties from vaccine  manufacturers in 2007, including Merck and GSK.