Two pharmaceutical manufacturers reacted differently in handling recent cases of misconduct involving their researchers. Pfizer fired Min-Jean Yin, a senior researcher since 2003 who had been working on the development of anti-cancer drugs at the company’s laboratory in La Jolla, California. The company also took the initiative in requesting the retraction of six articles signed by Yin. The papers had included manipulated images and were related to research on enzyme inhibitors being conducted at Pfizer. But the German firm Boehringer Ingelheim kept biologist Tina Wenz on its staff even after an investigation by the University of Cologne, Germany, where she worked as a researcher, found manipulation of data in six articles that she had authored—one of them already retracted. Wenz was hired by Boehringer Ingelheim to work as a researcher at its laboratory in Biberach, southern Germany, in late 2015 when the suspicions of misconduct were already being investigated. On the For Better Science blog, the company argued that the accusations had no connection with the work that Wenz is currently engaged in.
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