Medical journals, to a certain extent, require independent sustainable business models. The full-time editorial staff, the administrative personnel, and the printing costs must be defrayed by elements such as advertising, subscription fees, or other largess. One of these sources of largess – particularly for journals with high impact factors – is the ordering of reprints. After gifts, the major promotional material circulated by pharmaceutical companies among physicians is reprints of publications.
This recent study in the BMJ queried the most prominent medical journals regarding their reprints, hoping to gauge the scope of the reprint requests, as well as the financial windfall these might represent. JAMA, NEJM, and Annals of Internal Medicine all declined to provide data, so these authors were left with the Lancet and the BMJ family of journals. Of the most-frequently reprinted articles in these journals, they were far more likely to be industry-sponsored, and represented significant sources of income for the journals – up to a $2.4 million USD order from the Lancet.
There are significant limitations to this study, but, clearly, the revenue stream from reprints may be substantial enough that it may further influence and bias the publication of medical literature.
“High reprint orders in medical journals and pharmaceutical industry funding: case-control study”
http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e4212