GPP 2022: What Changes for Sponsored Scientific Publication Plans

When a pharmaceutical or biotech company sponsors a study, publishing the results with integrity isn't just good practice — it's a condition for the scientific community and regulators to trust that evidence. The Good Publication Practice (GPP) guidelines, updated in 2022 and published in Annals of Internal Medicine, exist precisely for that: to give a reference framework for publishing industry-sponsored biomedical research ^[1].

The 2022 update expanded the scope of previous versions. While earlier iterations of GPP focused on clinical studies, the new version reflects the need for responsible publication planning and management across all stages of clinical development and all types of biomedical research, not just clinical trials ^[2]. The guidelines apply to manuscripts and congress posters as well as to expanded content, including plain-language summaries for patients ^[1].

A point that often confuses medical affairs teams is how applicable these guidelines are outside a strictly industry context. A subsequent analysis on GPP 2022 adoption notes that, although the guidelines were developed with company-sponsored research in mind, the guidance they offer can be applied broadly, including in academic settings, where the principles of ethics, transparency, and timeliness are equally relevant ^[3].

For a team managing publication plans, dossiers, or materials derived from sponsored studies, GPP 2022 offers a practical checklist: how to define steering committees, how to document authorship, how to structure publication working groups, and what new information should be disclosed — such as the role of professional medical writers — in each published piece ^[1]. Building these principles into the publication plan from the design stage, rather than as a last-minute review, reduces the risk of editorial or committee objections that delay a study's release.