Laboratory research isn’t always efficient when it comes to actually producing medical treatments and cures. This can be due to the use of bad ingredients, poorly designed experiments or inadequate data analysis. And it’s costly.
A study that looked at about half of the preclinical research conducted in labs (excluding research on human volunteers) suggests that $28 billion is spent each year in the United States alone on research that doesn’t yield a return. This could be because the research just didn’t provide any valid results, or it could be that the research couldn’t be replicated because of confusing methods and other issues.
The study was published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology and was conducted by Leonard Freedman, who heads a nonprofit called the Global Biological Standards Institute, and two Boston University economists, Iain Cockburn and Timothy Simcoe.
“We initially were asking a very simple question,” Freeman told NPR. “We simply wanted to know how much money is being spent each year on basic preclinical research that is not reproducible.”
One issue Freedman points to is that scientists who use human cells grown in the lab often have contaminated or mislabeled samples. For example, it was recently discovered that a widely used breast cancer cell was actually a melanoma cell.
He estimated that $1 billion could be saved if scientists first ran DNA fingerprint tests on their cells for verification. He also suggested improvements on protocols and data analysis. “Better training for students, postdoctoral fellows, even principal investigators is in order here,” Freedman said.
Stefano Bertuzzi, executive director of the American Society for Cell Biology, agrees that there are costly issues at hand here, but he disagrees with the conclusion that the money is wasted, according to NPR. He believes the study lumps together big problems like cell contamination with research that is hard to replicate, but isn’t necessarily flawed.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
He wrote a rebuttal to these findings on ASCB’s site.
Freedman has reportedly agreed that it isn’t necessarily true that the money is wasted, but he hopes this figure calls attention to some of the errors that occur within this field of research. His organization has launched a campaign aimed at encouraging proper cell identification.
Photo: Flickr user Saint Louis University Madrid Campus
