The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) today announced the launch of its new IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal. Developed in conjunction with information technology leader IBM, it is the first internet search engine constructed specifically to link to on-line information made available by the innovative pharmaceutical industry about clinical trials worldwide....The Portal’s search engine has been programmed to access relevant on-line sources of clinical trial information. These include individual pharmaceutical company sites, sites run by third parties working on behalf of these companies, pharmaceutical industry association resources, such as the US pharmaceutical industry association (PhRMA) site...and government sites which routinely carry details of industry trials, such as the US National Library of Medicine’s [ClinicalTrials.Gov]. Other on-line clinical trial information resources, such as the European Union’s planned Europharm facility, may be linked to as and when they become available....The IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal helps to fulfil the commitment made by the researchbased pharmaceutical industry in its “Joint Position on the Disclosure of Clinical Trial Information via Clinical Trial Registries and Databases”, issued in January 2005...to provide a coherent industry blueprint for improving clinical trial transparency.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
