Madrid – The United States Academy of Sciences has decided to withdraw from its scientific journal (PNAS) the article they had published by a group of researchers, including the Spanish Mariano Barbacid, on advances to combat pancreatic cancer, upon detecting a “relevant” conflict of interest.
The academy, as reported by the newspaper El País and confirmed by EFE, has decided to withdraw that article after verifying that they had not revealed that conflict of interest at the time of its submission, since Mariano Barbacid and two of the co-authors of the work, Vasiliki Liaki and Carmen Guerra, have financial interests in Vega Oncotargets, which was created with the aim of developing therapies against this type of cancer, one of the most aggressive.
The journal has published the retraction of this article, and has reported that PNAS’s editorial policy for its contributions states that members of the Academy who have competing interests, financial or otherwise, that could be considered to significantly influence their objectivity or that create an “unfair” competitive advantage for any person or organization linked to the research, “must submit their work as a direct submission.”
The Barbacid team at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) published in that journal the results of a research work that allowed them to eliminate the most common pancreatic cancer, ductal adenocarcinoma, in mice with a three-drug combination therapy that prevents the emergence of resistance and does not have significant side effects.
The therapy would be the first to achieve complete healing in experimental models and to publicize the results of his work, Mariano Barbacid appeared before the media at a press conference last January, together with the main researchers, those responsible for the CRIS Foundation against cancer, and patients.
The United States Academy of Sciences, of which Mariano Barbacid is a member, has decided to withdraw the article for not disclosing this “relevant” conflict of interest at the time of its submission.