The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced its decision to postpone a $9.3 million grant to Emory University. This decision was taken after allegations came out that one of its top faculty members, psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff failed to disclose income received from the drug maker GalxoSmithKline (GSK), thus violating federal regulations.

Emory said Dr. Nemeroff stepped down as principal investigator on three NIH research grants, pending resolution of the case.

“To the best of my knowledge, I have followed the appropriate university regulations concerning financial disclosures,” he told Emory officials in a statement released Tuesday.

From 2000 through 2006, Dr. Nemeroff received just over $960,000 from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company, but reported to Emory that he received no more than $35,000, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a letter he sent earlier this month to Emory President James Wagner. Dr. Nemeroff repeatedly denied having a significant financial relationship with Glaxo, said Sen. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been investigating ties between academic researchers and the medical industry.

The psychiatrist had been instructed by the university not to accept payments of more than $10,000 annually during the grant, and repeatedly exceeded that amount, according to the letter.

Emory is conducting an internal investigation into Nemeroff’s financial relationships to ensure researchers involved in this grants have disclosed fully all other outside financial relationships. Emory said was “working diligently to determine whether our policies have been observed consistently” and called the allegations made by Sen. Grassley “serious.”