Herbal supplement giant Swisse Wellness has signed a multimillion-dollar, three-year research deal with the country's peak scientific organisation - to investigate its own product claims.
Signed on August 1, the partnership with the CSIRO adds to Swisse's growing stable of research collaborators, including La Trobe University and Swinburne University.
Australians spend $3.5 billion on complementary medicines a year, with Swisse holding about 17 per cent of the market.
Swisse chief executive Radek Sali said the agreement will concentrate on the brand's product claims, research into novel ingredients and advanced manufacturing. The first research project will begin in November.
"The main focus will be on our product claims and further studies to support the already large body of evidence supporting the claims we make," he said.
Mr Sali said if the CSIRO results didn't support a product claim it would be "exciting" because evidence was "essential for consumers to make decisions about their health".
Mr Sali would not reveal the agreement's dollar value, other than to say it would be bigger than the $15 million deal struck with La Trobe University in 2014.
CSIRO's Rob Grenfell said findings deemed not commercial in confidence would be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
"We haven't entered into the agreement with any naivety," said Dr Grenfell, a former executive with private health insurer Bupa who joined CSIRO as director of health and biosecurity in July 2016. "We are not going to endorse agents that are not scientifically valid."
Under the agreement, Dr Grenfell said Swisse would determine the research projects undertaken.
CSIRO staff association secretary Sam Popovski said he hoped the deal would not damage CSIRO's integrity and that the organisation could continue to undertake research to benefit all Australians - not just a private company's bottom line.
"We don't have a problem with an industry partner funding research.... but it's important that research is conducted freely, independently and gets reported as such," he said. "We don't want to see businesses using CSIRO as a glorified consultancy because we feel that's a slippery slope to the bottom."
Agreements struck by supplement companies have courted controversy in the past, including in 2015 when Blackmores donated $1.3 million to Sydney University. A year prior Ken Harvey quit his post at La Trobe's school of public health over a $15 million deal with Swisse to research its products.
Now with Monash University, associate professor Harvey said while problems in the complementary medicine area remained, he wasn't against research if it was objective.
"It needs to be done properly," he said. "It shouldn't be small studies not replicated, results taken out of context or results called commercial in confidence meaning they don't get released for wider scientific scrutiny."
He said the current "trust-based regulatory system" allowed low-risk complementary medicines to reach the market without being independently evaluated.
"There is no incentive for sponsors of complementary medicines to undertake the research required to prove their products work," he said. "A better return on investment comes from spending their money on promotion, celebrities and appeals against regulatory violations."
Recent random and targeted reviews of complementary medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration showed around 80 per cent were not in compliance with the regulations.
"That tells you that the trust-based system has failed," he said.
However associate professor Harvey said he sensed the landscape was changing and that "the days of bullshit are coming to an end".
"There is an understanding in industry that they have to move to the next level and have a research base (to back up their claims) and I'm supportive of that."