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In a letter to the editors of the Journal of

Dec. 23, 2017 by Ella Pickett

In a letter to the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mr. Baselga and others described how Roche's use of drugs was "a major financial expense that the company spent heavily on research and development in the past year, despite its efforts to minimize these costs." And, the Times further notes, it "lacks a clear understanding of the risks associated with the Company's clinical trials and its financial decisions."

But the Times also uncovered that the company is not simply an importer, or a financial importer, of drugs, nor is it simply a leader in research and development. Rather, Mr. Baselga has been a consultant in its development and commercialization efforts in the years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

That year, the Journal asked the Times for an explanation of how Roche would respond to the Times' inquiry. The agency's office then emailed a response to the Times that the Times refused to publish. And in his letter, Mr. Baselga wrote that he had been "committed to continuing to provide evidence of the company's leadership in clinical research and development." But this did little to clarify his reasons for resigning from the Journal, the Times notes.

Mr. Baselga's comments about the company's role in the company's development and commercialization efforts were also ignored by the Times. In his letter to the editors, Mr. Baselga stated that some of his company's research projects had already been completed, but that he was not concerned about whether or not the research was completed. He also noted that the company had no responsibility for the development of the drugs he had reviewed, in other words, not just the cost of those drugs but also the costs of those clinical trials.

The Times also noted that "the company's involvement in the clinical trials that led to its research was not disclosed to the Times as part of its confidentiality agreement with the Journal, which is not required under U.S. law." However, when contacted by the Times, the company's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

As the Times has noted, the Times has never reported a company's role in any of its investigations. Nor has the company disclosed that it is an importer of drugs to other companies. Indeed, the Times has made it clear that it is not aware of any company, in the past, that has engaged in a role by which it made money from research and development to advance its own research and development efforts.