Saudi pharmacist Nabil Alhakamy has published 219 scientific articles since 2020—an average of more than one per week. The quality of his academic work, however, is now under question: more than 20 of his articles have been retracted in recent years, mostly due to problems with images and figures. The most recent was a paper published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy in 2022 that was retracted in March because it contained three images copied from previously published work.
The sequence of retractions began at the end of 2022, when anonymous comments made on the PubPeer website alleged that the pharmacist’s articles contained duplicate images and repeated content. In the retraction notes, Alhakamy and his coauthors acknowledge the duplicate images and claimed that they had been reused by mistake. The website For Better Science recently published a report on articles suspected of containing fabricated data, mentioning the Saudi scientist’s work.
In addition to being a prolific author, Alhakamy is also an academic manager: he holds the position of vice dean of research and higher education at King AbdulAziz University’s School of Pharmacy. He has founded and led pharmaceutical and biotechnology startups in his country, is a partner in a Miami-based venture capital firm that focuses on innovation in life sciences, and chairs the board of directors of the Saudi Scientific Society for Pharmaceutical Industries.
Republish