Pharma goes open access

Swiss drug maker Novartis this month made the results of a genomic analysis of type 2 diabetes freely available on the Internet. Such open sharing of data might run counter to the general view of the pharmaceutical industry, but many academics see it as part of a growing awareness among firms that there are benefits to be had from making at least some information publicly available."Data sharing is good, and it's good to see pharma catching up with academia in this respect," Mark McCarthy from the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, who is studying diabetes genomics, told The Scientist.Peter Suber from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition pointed out in an Email that the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) recently urged the European Commission to mandate open access for EU-funded research, and half of EURAB members are in industry. "As EURAB shows, industry is starting...