PubChem in Chronicle of Higher Education

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16 June 2005

American Chemical Society Lobbies Against a Free NIH Database That It Sees 
as a Competitor
By ERIC WILLS

When the National Institutes of Health created a database called PubChem
in September 2004, many biomedical researchers rejoiced. PubChem provided
them with easy and free access to information about small molecules and
links to data used to study genes, cells, and biochemical pathways. One of
the major goals of the project was to enable the discovery of drugs to
fight cancer and other diseases.

Yet there was little rejoicing at the American Chemical Society. For the
last 40 years, the society has operated the Chemical Abstracts Service, a
fee-based compendium of information about 25 million molecules that
contains links to corresponding patent information and journal articles.  
In a letter posted on the society's Web site at the end of May, its
leaders argued that, with the creation of PubChem, the "NIH has created a
mini-replica of the CAS Registry" and was unfairly and unnecessarily
competing with its product.

A bitter squabble over that alleged duplication has intensified in recent
weeks, as Congress considers whether to cut money appropriated for
PubChem. The possibility of such a cut alarms many scientists, who see
PubChem as a valuable new resource.

The chemical society argues that PubChem contains at least eight or nine 
data fields that mimic those in its own database, including a number that 
the society assigns to each molecule as a unique identifier. "Our major 
concern has been that PubChem, from its initial launch, appeared to be 
moving in the direction of complete and total duplication of the CAS 
Registry," said Madeleine Jacobs, the society's executive director.

[SNIP]

Copyright 2005, Chronicle of higher Education