# The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-freedman-plos-biol/  
OnCo record `paper-freedman-plos-biol` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one bottleneck page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 26057340 and published in PLoS biology; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Low reproducibility rates within life science research undermine cumulative knowledge production and contribute to both delays and costs of therapeutic drug development. An analysis of past studies indicates that the cumulative (total) prevalence of irreproducible preclinical research exceeds 50%, resulting in approximately US$28,000,000,000 (US$28B)/year spent on preclinical research that is not reproducible-in the United States alone. We outline a framework for solutions and a plan for long-term improvements in reproducibility rates that will help to accelerate the discovery of life-saving therapies and cures.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 26057340 (DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165). Matched by DOI alone: one bottleneck page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: PLoS biology
- Year: 2015
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165
- Authors: Freedman LP, Cockburn IM, Simcoe TS
- What it means: One bottleneck page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- PLoS Biol 2015: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26057340/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/26057340

## Connected records

- bottlenecks: [Preclinical results do not reproduce](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/)

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