Measuring Impact in Drug Repurposing

Despite an urgent need for real-world solutions such as new therapies for a host of neglected diseases, the “impact” of academic research in the biomedical sciences is to a large extent measured by a bibliometric benchmark, the “Impact Factor”. This factor only measures the average number of citations to a particular journal within a proprietary data set and reflects nothing about the citations to a single article or impact of specific research results. Nevertheless, the “Impact Factor” remains the central currency of academic research to this day, dictating careers, grants and even the direction of research programs.

The drug repurposing community has set out to challenge the status quo in drug discovery by questioning current organ-based disease definitions and standard practices for bringing new drugs to market. By applying bioinformatics, in silico and network medicine approaches, machine learning and AI, researchers attempt to shift the paradigm of biomedical research towards more personalized and precision medicine. These digital tools will be most effective in an environment of FAIR data, rapid sharing, structured and networked information. Therefore, new incentives and metrics for academic research are required that encourage open science practices, rather than publication in traditionally “high-impact”, subscription-based journals. A true impact factor might measure the accessibility and reach beyond academic libraries, interoperability with other data sets, citations in the patent literature, reproducibility and scientific rigor. Academia could be a stronger motor for drug repurposing to quickly bring potential therapies to clinical trial and beyond, if incentives were better aligned with metrics of impact that actually measured impact on the lives of patients.

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Publisher: REPO4EU

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 4 October 2023

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[1 ] ScienceOpen GmbH, Berlin (Germany);

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Stephanie Dawson https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2298-2418

Article

DOI: 10.58647/REXPO.23020

SO-VID: e14ae7b9-a83e-4829-a3d1-e51d03311628

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Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International ( CC BY 4.0). Users are allowed to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially), as long as the authors and the publisher are explicitly identified and properly acknowledged as the original source.

Conference name: RExPO23

Conference number: 2

Conference location: Stockholm, Sweden

Conference date: 25-26 October 2023

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REPO4EU

References

Brembs Björn. Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Vol. 12:2018. Frontiers Media SA. [Cross Ref]
McKiernan Erin C, Schimanski Lesley A, Muñoz Nieves Carol, Matthias Lisa, Niles Meredith T, Alperin Juan P. Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations. eLife. Vol. 8:2019. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. [Cross Ref]

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[1] Brembs Björn. Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Vol. 12:2018. Frontiers Media SA. [Cross Ref]

[2] McKiernan Erin C, Schimanski Lesley A, Muñoz Nieves Carol, Matthias Lisa, Niles Meredith T, Alperin Juan P. Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations. eLife. Vol. 8:2019. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. [Cross Ref]