This is true, but perhaps not for the reason you have in mind. The “failures” are exaggerated by shoddy experimental design—mainly trying to generalize from a single fully inbred strain of mouse. Most murine research is based on this one strain: C57BL/6. This is like conducting a clinical study with one seriously inbred human subject multiple times. Very poor generality even to other types of mice, let alone to humans.

I think it's terribly unfortunate that the the "in mice" meme ever took off. If overhyping science based on preliminary tests is bad, so too is the blanket dismissal of that research that overcorrects in the wrong direction.

We share enough mechanisms across genetics, proteins and even our immune systems and that research is capable of asking meaningful questions that matter to us, and frequently has paid off. That's not to justify the ethics of it but I think it's beyond question that research iN mIcE has been an important research platform for things like immunology and lead to nobel prizes. Research writ large is a vast cumulative program of small iterations that are, individually, of provisional significance, and the categorical dismissal of it as not producing instant one-shot cures is at least as bad a misunderstanding of science as overhyped articles are.