A case for 'open source' clinical trial data (locked behind a pay wall) - FierceBiotechIT

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-05-08

Summary:

“It's a major bugaboo in life sciences R&D: Biopharma researchers waste lots of time and resources doing experiments that have already been done, in part because scientists in one lab aren't sharing results with their counterparts in another lab. Now Australian researchers argue that open source rules for clinical trials could nix the replication and stymied progress which result from keeping data from studies under wraps. (Ironically, the group from the University of New South Wales made their case in a Science Translational Medicine commentary that is locked behind a pay wall.) Amid many calls for open access to scientific research data, the researchers say that ‘open sharing’ of clinical trial evidence from studies could speed progress and enable trial data to be used in real-world applications, according to University of New South Wales' press release. In their commentary, they point out that the open-source movement in the software sector advanced the development of applications by making source code freely available. To realize their vision for open sharing of clinical data, the Australian researchers call for letting clinicians contribute to and tap a pool of interoperable patient-level data, creating data standards for sharing the data, and open the airwaves of communication between doctors and developers, Life Scientist reported. Yet whether the clinical community can overcome the economic and cultural barriers that hackers cleared to drive the open source software movement remains an open question... Recently, however, there have been some signs that scientific and clinical data could become more widely available. The Wellcome Trust recently endorsed an initiative to make all scientific research available for free and the U.K. charity plans to start a new open-access journal for publishing studies. And the FDA's IT chief, Eric Perakslis, has said he would push for open source projects to make non-proprietary data at the agency accessible to researchers.”

Link:

http://www.fiercebiotechit.com/story/case-open-source-clinical-trial-data-locked-behind-pay-wall/2012-05-03

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.data oa.comment oa.usa oa.advocacy oa.open_science oa.australia oa.interoperability oa.uk oa.funders oa.wellcome oa.floss oa.benefits oa.fda oa.data.standards

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

05/08/2012, 10:40

Date published:

05/04/2012, 22:56