Nobel Prize Panel Lobbied, Paper Says

A newspaper accused the Nobel prize committee for medicine on Sunday of giving its prize to an Italian drug researcher in 1986 because of a lobbying campaign by her company.

The Nobel committee denied the allegations, which come five weeks before the announcement of this year’s Nobels in medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace. Each award carries a cash prize of $987,000.

The Dagens Nyheter newspaper, citing Italian officials and unnamed sources, claimed the Fidia company spent $8.4 million to convince the Karolinska Institute - which selects the winners - to honor Rita Levi Montalcini in 1986.

Montalcini denied similar allegations last year by an Italian health official cited as one source of the Dagens Nyheter report.

Montalcini was honored for her discovery of nerve growth factors in the human nervous system. After the award, Fidia’s sales doubled, although the company later went out of business, the report said.