But then what do they do? Cross their fingers and wait for some random researchers to take an interest in their product? Sure, if the product becomes popular then it might attract research, but what if barely anyone tries your product because there's no research on it? Am I missing something or is this a catch-22?
I used to think it was corrupt for companies to sponsor research on their own products. Then one day it occurred to me: who else is going to care about a product (especially one that's relatively unknown) more than the company trying to sell it?
If you come up with a supplement to aid in sleeping, it's fine to conduct a study and use it in marketing to say hey, studies have shown it helps you sleep at night.
The matter becomes grayer when there are concerns about the safety of a product. I'm personally willing to trust your study that your supplement aids with sleeping, but I don't trust that you're disclosing that your test subjects also all died of cancer. You have an interest in hiding the downside of your findings to sell more product.
Put another way, the NRA's studies would find nothing wrong with arming every American man, woman and child-- for their own protection! Their interest is in selling guns. That owning a gun increases your chances of accidental death by x% is likely not a fact they will share with you.
What was the last supplement you saw that was patentable?
Supplements in general are vaguely effective and mostly unpatented, meaning that the only incentive for a supplement company to perform "research" is for the purpose of marketing that they have some sort of research, but it's against the law for them to say that their supplements do anything specific outside the vague "bone health" etc. claims.
Don't get me wrong, I take various supplements daily, but I'm also fully aware of how sketchy this industry is, especially where there are herbal supplements that were out there found not to contain any genetic material of the herbs the bottle was advertising.
