Dr. Schulz said he had hoped that a larger, placebo-based trial — involving about 100 patients followed over eight weeks at three study sites — would help clarify whether antipsychotics such as Seroquel could help people with the disorder, and he proposed the trial to AstraZeneca.

He already knew the company. He had served on one of AstraZeneca’s scientific advisory boards, and from 2002 to 2007 he received more than $112,000 from AstraZeneca in speaking and consulting fees and other payments, according to records collected by the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. Dr. Schulz said that the relationship did not affect his objectivity and that, in any case, he ended his financial ties to the company after the borderline personality disorder trial got underway.

The trial was expected to take about two years, but soon after enrollment began, one of the three clinical sites, McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, essentially dropped out, citing lack of interest from patients. That left the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa, the other site, to find more study subjects.

In April 2010, one month before the resident spiked the oatmeal at Alpha, a report from the study’s safety officer noted that enrollment was “less than half of what it is expected to be” and that it was now expected to take five years instead of two.

Dr. Schulz said that AstraZeneca was disappointed to learn of the delay. Seroquel was a top seller for the company, bringing in billions of dollars a year. But by the time Dr. Schulz proposed the borderline disorder study in 2007, the company knew that Seroquel’s blockbuster days were limited: It stood to lose its patent protection in 2012. When that happened, a flood of cheap generic alternatives would cause sales to plummet. Seroquel XR, the extended-release version and the subject of Dr. Schulz’s study, would keep its patent protection until 2017, but with generic competition for the standard version, sales were unlikely to be robust.

“I know that they wanted things to be done quicker,” he said, “but they said we could keep our grant and finish the study.”