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SKDKnickerbocker is working with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as the nation’s top research and treatment facility seeks to restore luster to a reputation tarnished by news of cozy ties between some of its top researchers and industry, and the ensuing revolt by rank and file doctors.
The New York Times, in conjunction with ProPublica, has published a series of stories about lucrative relationships between Sloan Kettering's top researchers and the private sector.
It published a nearly 2,800-word story online Dec. 31 and in print Jan. 1 that attributed a cultural change at SK following the 2010 departure of CEO Harold Varmus to head the National Cancer Institute.
SK’s board, according to the NYT, wanted the CEO successor to “do more to encourage company-financed clinical trials and to bring discoveries to market.”
It recruited Craig Thompson, a respected cancer research who supported ties between non-profit research centers with industry, as CEO.
Following an Oct. 1 meeting of SK doctors, who were angered by revelations about lucrative relationships with the private sector, Thompson vowed greater openness with rank and file doctors.
SKDKnick helps SK manage messaging and has “aggressively pushed back against the idea that the hospital’s leaders are too close to industry," according to the NYT.
Mark Penn’s Stagwell Group owns SKDKnick.
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PR firms need to be mindful of ways their work product may be protected by the attorney-client privilege whenever working with a client’s internal legal team or its external legal counsel.
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