In 2011 and 2012, a large stone was thrown into the pond of scientific evidence and reliability. Both Amgen and Bayer stated that they were unable to reproduce the outcomes of previous clinical trials. Amgen scientists tried to reproduce the results of 53 essential publications. Only 6 (11.3%) of them reached the expected outcome. Bayer did the same with 67 in-house projects, whose analysis revealed that only in ~20–25% of the projects matched previous findings (visual illustration).

This topic is now widely discussed and scientists are currently working to find one or more solutions to this issue. I collected several articles on the subject and I will continue. So stay tuned!

Articles

What does scientific reproducibility mean, anyway? – STAT -2016

Most scientists believe there is a “crisis” reproducing experiments – STAT – 2016

1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility – Nature – 2016

Cancer Research is Broken – Slate – 2016

Reproducibility: Team up with industry – Nature Comment – 2016

Special edition on reproducibility – Nature – 2015

The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research – PLOS Biology – 2015

Reproducibility in Science – Circulation Research – 2015

Basic statistical issues for reproducibility – ETH Zürich (Werner Stahel) – 2015

Reproducibility and cell biology – Journal of Cell Biology – 2015

Reliability of “new drug target” claims called into question – Nature Blog – 2011

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