Abstract
Colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to report the income that pharmaceutical companies pay them to operate clinical research trials as gifts, pending final adoption of new reporting standards developed by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article by John L. Pulley. Clinical trials are contractual agreements, the proceeds of which do not qualify as gifts, CASE says. That change was one of several new reporting standards unveiled at CASE's annual international assembly in June. The move to disallow treating clinical trial money as a gift will substantially reduce gift totals for some institutions, said John H. Taylor, director of alumni and development records at Duke University. Duke had until recently been counting as gifts the significant income it receives from clinical trials. Under the new standards, Duke's fund-raising total for FY 2000 declined to approximately $260 million, down from $400 million. In some cases, the new regulations confront issues that were of little or no concern just a few years ago.