The misconduct case of Eliezer Masliah highlights once again existing challenges in allocating capital to projects with the most robust and reliable supporting data. Sponsors of biomedical innovation appear not to know how to identify biased research.
Some areas of biomedical innovation may be particularly affected by investors betting on wrong horses. For example, we were struck by a post listing recent high-profile misconduct cases: notably, all are from the neurodegeneration / Alzheimer’s disease field and all are directly or indirectly connected with privately funded biotech companies.
The problem not only concerns wasted or misallocated capital as well as ethical concerns about research animals involved in all drug development projects, but also the safety risks to which human subjects are exposed when testing novel chemicals or biologics commences without sufficiently strong justification.
What makes the Alzheimer’s field so special? Is it the huge unmet medical need? Is it the resulting pressure to deliver? Is it related to the incredibly low probability of success when it comes to translating preclinical efficacy claims into therapeutic benefit for people with Alzheimer’s disease?
Without any doubt, there are many factors involved and there is no simple recipe. What can we do to help steering the biotech funding away from low-rigor research towards projects that truly deserve to be supported.
On January 31, 2025, at 16:00 CET / 10 am EST, we will give a webinar to provide practical recommendations for sponsors and funders of applied research on how to ensure robustness and reliability of the research output.
Key topics include identifying critical or decision-enabling evidence, pre-specification of study hypotheses and measures to prevent or minimise the risk of bias. We will also discuss what to do if decision-enabling studies were not performed in ‘confirmatory’ mode. Additionally, the webinar will explore best practices for data presentation, including the appropriate use of bar graphs, usage of effect sizes vs p-values, and image beautification practices.
The webinar is organized by the ECNP Preclinical Data Forum Network, co-hosted by GoEQIPD, CAMARADES and PAASP. Here is the registration link:
We ask you to help disseminating information about this webinar (main audience: private investors and venture capital, licensing and acquisitions teams, due diligence teams, technology transfer offices, and other groups involved in financing of early / nonclinical stages of biomedical innovation).