Publishing research from a health start-up

Why publish

A health start-up that publishes its evidence in a peer-reviewed journal gives clinicians, regulators, investors and patients a record they can read and test, which marketing material cannot offer. Publication also forces discipline: a clear question, a defined method, honest reporting of limits. A paper does not prove that a product works in every setting, and it should not be written as an advertisement. Journals will expect a balanced discussion, and a company that reports negative or neutral results builds more trust than one that reports only success.

Conflicts of interest and funding statements

When authors work for, own part of, or are paid by the company whose product is studied, this must be declared. The ICMJE recommendations ask authors to disclose financial relationships such as employment, consultancies, stock, honoraria and patents, and say that failing to report relationships listed on the journal's form is treated as misconduct. They also ask the article to name sponsors and explain their role, or to state that the sponsor had no involvement. Authors must not agree to sponsor terms that limit their access to all study data or their right to analyse, interpret and publish independently, and rules that dictate where authors may publish violate academic freedom. For industry-funded studies, editors may ask for a signed statement that the authors had full data access and take responsibility for data integrity.

Practical steps for a company team:

• Say in the declarations who employs or pays each author and who owns the product.
• Where possible, involve an academic co-author or an independent analyst for the statistical analysis, and say what role each person had.
• Use the funding statement guide for exact wording of grant and investment support.

Support programmes (official pages only)

Some programmes serve companies rather than individual academics. I checked these official pages; calls, amounts and conditions change, so check the official page for current calls.

• TÜBİTAK BiGG Investment (1812). TÜBİTAK describes it as an investment-based entrepreneurship support programme. It is open to entrepreneurs who have completed an earlier stage run by implementing organisations and have qualified for the second stage; applications go through TÜBİTAK's application system. The 2026-2 call announcement gives investment terms and a calendar.
• KOSGEB. Supports small and medium-sized enterprises. Its site lists, among others, an entrepreneur support programme, a capacity development programme, a global competitiveness programme and a technology centre support programme.
• European Innovation Council (EIC). Presents itself as a large funder of deep-tech innovation, with instruments called Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator.

Receiving a grant does not entitle anyone to publication in a journal, and a journal will not give preferential treatment to a funded team. For the academic route, see the research funding guide.

Data and patient privacy

Health data are personal data of a special category under Turkish law. The Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) explains that special category data, which include health data, may not be processed unless one of the conditions in Article 6 of Law No. 6698 applies, for example explicit consent, a statutory authorisation, or processing for health purposes by persons or bodies bound by confidentiality, and that the controller must also take adequate measures set by the Personal Data Protection Board. These notes are not legal advice; ask your data protection officer or a lawyer about your study.

For manuscripts, the ICMJE recommendations add that:

• human research should follow the Declaration of Helsinki and be approved by an independent ethics committee or review board, with documentation available on request;
• names, initials and hospital numbers are left out unless essential, and identifiable patient material needs the patient's written consent after they have seen the manuscript;
• masking the eye region in a photograph is not adequate protection of anonymity;
• when consent was obtained, the published article should say so.

Keep identifiable data off shared systems that are not covered by your agreements, and describe in the paper how data were de-identified and stored, without exposing details that would help re-identification.

Sources

• ICMJE, conflicts of interest and funding: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html
• ICMJE, protection of research participants: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/protection-of-research-participants.html
• TÜBİTAK BiGG Investment 2026-2 call: https://tubitak.gov.tr/tr/duyuru/turkiyenin-ilk-yatirim-tabanli-girisimcilik-destek-programi-olan-bigg-yatirim-programinin-2026-2-cagrisi-acildi
• KOSGEB: https://www.kosgeb.gov.tr
• European Innovation Council: https://eic.ec.europa.eu/index_en
• KVKK, conditions for processing special category personal data: https://www.kvkk.gov.tr/SharedFolderServer/CMSFiles/41e880f2-9f70-40e6-9258-e7fc86e39a76.pdf