Welcome to the latest edition of the Open Pharma monthly update! Each month, our team curates the most important news, milestones and insights from the Open Pharma community and beyond, delivering them straight to your inbox.
In this issue, we’re excited to highlight the Open Pharma Vision manuscript published in BMJ Open, outlining principles to support greater transparency, accessibility and trust in company-sponsored biomedical research publications.
Open Pharma updates
Open Pharma Vision manuscript published in BMJ Open
- Open Pharma is pleased to announce the publication in BMJ Open of a new vision statement on company-sponsored biomedical research publications. The statement sets out shared, forward-looking principles to support greater transparency, accessibility and trust in research communications. These include the use of open access, plain language summaries (PLS), FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles, robust metadata and patient involvement. You can read the full article here: An Open Pharma Vision for company‑sponsored biomedical research publications.
Open Pharma strategy and planning meetings held at ISMPP Annual 2026
- We held the second of our annual hybrid meetings for Members and Supporters at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) on 20 April. Attendees discussed PLS and patient involvement in publications, as well as common critiques of open access publishing to support planned updates to the open access objection handler. Look out for upcoming Open Pharma activities on these themes later this year, including an open letter and position statement.
OpenEvidence at ISMPP Annual 2026
- OpenEvidence, the clinician-facing artificial intelligence (AI) platform that summarizes clinical evidence based on peer-reviewed content, was a major topic of discussion at ISMPP Annual 2026. We’ve published an article summarizing the key discussions at ISMPP Annual and considering the impact of retrieval-augmented AI on open access and transparent medical publishing. Access to OpenEvidence was withdrawn in the EU and UK on 27 April due to regulatory uncertainty. However, the broader questions and concerns around clinician-focused AI tools remain highly relevant in the USA and for the global use of other AI tools, such as Doximity and Undermind, all of which have the potential to shape the global publication landscape. Read more on the Open Pharma blog here: OpenEvidence at ISMPP Annual: what we heard, what we’re asking and what comes next.
Insight of the month
APC caps and bans – why funder policies aimed at curbing the publishing industry don’t work via The Scholarly Kitchen | 5-minute read
- This commentary in The Scholarly Kitchen reflects on the growing use of funder policies to limit spending on article processing charges (APCs) – the fees paid to make research immediately available open access – and questions how effective these approaches are at influencing publishing models. Policies to cap or withdraw funding for APCs have recently been announced by several large research funders, including the US National Institutes of Health, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Cancer Research UK. However, the article notes that researchers often find workarounds to funder open access policies and continue to prioritize publication in prestigious journals or use alternative funding sources to support publication in ‘high-fee’ hybrid journals. The article reinforces the Open Pharma mission to elicit change in the publishing ecosystem through coordinated, multi-stakeholder system-level action.
Recommended reads
Directory of Open Access Journals Annual Highlights 2025 via Zenodo | 8-minute read
Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations (GPCAP) recommendations: 2026 update via Current Medical Research and Opinion | 20-minute read
Next phase of Open Access at UKRI: here’s what you should know via LinkedIn | 2-minute read
Upcoming dates and deadlines
These meetings are for Open Pharma Members and Supporters only. Please contact us for more information about how to join Open Pharma.
- Patient involvement working group | Topic TBC – 10:30–11:30 EDT / 15:30–16:30 BST / 16:30–17:30 CEST on 4 June
- PLS and discoverability working group | Topic TBC – 10:00–11:00 EDT / 15:00–16:00 BST / 16:00–17:00 CEST on 8 June
- OA working group | Green open access – 09:00–10:00 EDT / 14:00–15:00 BST / 15:00–16:00 CEST on 19 June
- AI discussion forum | ISMPP Annual digest – 09:30–11:00 EDT / 14:30–16:00 BST / 15:30–17:00 CEST on 23 June
- Members’ meeting – 09:00–10:00 EDT / 14:00–15:00 BST / 15:00–16:00 CEST on 29 June
We hope you enjoyed, and found inspiration in, this month’s highlights. As always, we welcome your feedback and contributions – if you have an idea for a future monthly update, let us know! To keep up to date with what we’re doing between updates, make sure to follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
