- A Science News item published Wednesday discusses negotiations between German institutions and publishers to create a new nation-wide open access model. According to the report, a successful agreement for the large German market could lead to a major shift in academic publishing.
- The meetings in Germany are just one of the current cases mentioned in Sci-Hub Moves to the Center of the Ecosystem, a post on Scholarly Kitchen looking at how the existence of the illegal sharing site effects the landscape of scholarly publishing and libraries.
- Legal issues for Sci-Hub continue. Two weeks ago, it was reported that the American Chemical Society (ACS), is seeking millions of dollars in damages from the site and also wants internet service providers to block it. Thanks to Nancy Sims, aka @CopyrightLibn, for sharing this item and calling attention to it.
- Wrapping up this post, but certainly far from the final word on the matter, is a letter to ResearchGate from the International Association of Scientific and Medical Publishers (STM) proposing a solution to the paper sharing site’ legal issues.
Cancer Drugs’ High Prices Possibly Not Justified by Cost of R&D
Researchers from MSK and the Oregon Health and Science University sought to find out the approximate cost to bring a cancer drug to market. Their study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine (09/11/17), sought to quantify a standard amount by focusing on new cancer drugs and analyzing the company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine research and development costs. Although the new study was small, its estimates found the median cost was below previous estimates while profits were in the tens of billions. Dr. Sham Mailankody from MSK commented in an NPR article about their findings.
Cancer Screening Selfies, Obesity Cancer Link and More…
Surfing the web, I found these stories of interest:
- Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new app that uses smartphone selfies to easily screen for pancreatic cancer and other disease:
- Scientists at St. Jude’s Research Hospital have established the largest collection of pediatric solid tumor samples and drug sensitivity data in an ongoing effort to effectively open source the hospital’s expertise, with the hospital now formally opening up its Childhood Solid Tumor Network to a wider audience. Read more on this significant contribution in Nature.
- A new study led by researchers at the Michigan State University offers new insight on how a specific protein released from fat in the body can cause a cancerous cell. The findings were reported in Oncogene.