Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : November/December 2001

Highlights in the Pharmaceutical/Biomedical Arena in 2001

Modifications and additions to the already exemplary collection of scientific biomedical and pharmaceutical databases on Dialog and DataStar have made 2001 a busy year at Dialog. Major changes and additions are highlighted in this article. (See the Highlights in the Business article for more on market research in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.)

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National Library of Medicine

The changes announced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) have resulted in some positive developments for MEDLINE®:

• More frequent updating
  (daily Monday to Thursday)
• Inclusion of In Process records
  (formerly called Premedline)

On Dialog, In Process records are integrated into MEDLINE; on DataStar, In Process records are also integrated into MEDLINE, but a standalone file containing just these records has also been created (label: MEIP).

In addition, the journal citations from AIDSLINE®, BIOETHICSLINE and HealthStar have now been integrated into an expanded version of MEDLINE.

In October 2001, ToxFile was launched on Dialog (File 156) and DataStar (label: TOXL) as a standalone toxicology database when TOXLINE® was discontinued by the NLM. It consists of the toxicology-related journal citations extracted from MEDLINE. The standalone ToxFile represents a significant time saving for customers in terms of searching for relevant information within a subject-specific subset of MEDLINE.

ToxFile, as launched in October 2001, is the first stage of the Dialog/DataStar toxicology database. Later stages will include the non-journal material provided by NLM and its affiliated institutions and may also feature records from other publishers.

ToxFile is updated weekly, an improvement over the monthly updates in TOXLINE. Alerts are available in ToxFile on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.

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Evidence-based Medicine

An area of increasing medical interest is evidence-based medicine. With the addition of the Cochrane Database and changes to the Adis Drug Alerts file, Dialog has expanded into this fast-growing area of medicine.

September saw the launch of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (label: CDSR) on DataStar. This launch was significant on two counts: it signaled our intention to expand coverage in the area of evidence-based medicine; it also represented a technological first for DataStar in that a summary document on DataStarWeb links to the full-text PDF of the review including all graphical material on a pay-per-view basis.

The summary documents of the review are available on all DataStar platforms, but the PDFs must be viewed in DataStarWeb. CDSR is updated quarterly.

Adis Clinical Trials Insight , formerly known as Adis LMS Drug Alerts, was significantly enhanced on DataStar under the new name in September 2001. Adis Clinical Trials Insight (new label: ACTI) collects the latest clinical trial results in all major therapeutic areas.

Improvements to Adis Clinical Trials Insight include:

• All clinical trial assessments from July 2000 forward are full text
• Additional search features provide better access to the trial evaluations written by Adis specialists.

The pre-July 2000 data is held as an archive (label: ACOO). Adis Clinical Trials Insight is expected to be relaunched on Dialog soon.

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News

New titles and a new database on DataStar expand an already significant collection of news and industry information in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and medical devices markets.

Earlier this year, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry News Database (Files 129/130/labels: PHIN/PHIC) saw the introduction of two new titles:

• Genomika, a bi-weekly newsletter providing the latest market and business information on the fast-expanding field of DNA, RNA, and protein analysis.
• Instrumenta, a newsletter containing the latest news on the global analytical instrument and laboratory equipment markets.

NewsRX (label: RXNS), a collection of 21 full-text healthcare newsletters, was launched on DataStar in September. NewsRX newsletters are organized along therapeutic areas rather than by drug category or company as such sources traditionally tend to be. NewsRx produces business and consumer information relating to drugs, chemicals, biotechnology, science, medicine and health. Titles include Blood Weekly, AIDS Weekly, Cancer Weekly, Drug Week, Gene Therapy Weekly, Heart Disease Weekly, Immunotherapy Weekly, Virus Weekly, and Women's Health Weekly. The database is updated weekly.

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Other Sources

DataStar has improved its content in the areas of drug data and medical engineering. Martindale, an important source of drug information, has been enhanced through its reload on DataStar. Moreover, MEDITEC: Medical Engineering adds scientific and economic information to the scitech collection.

Some significant changes to Martindale Pharmacopoeia (label: MART) were implemented on DataStar this September. The reload of this drug reference work of worldwide renown means that Martindale can now be updated every quarter. This is significant as the hard copy version is only issued every few years.

In addition, the search capabilities of Martindale have been much improved over the previous version. Users can now easily collect and display all the information on a particular category of drugs (e.g., Cardiovascular Drugs). This was not possible in the old version. Moreover, if a user is interested in certain aspects of all drugs with similar actions or uses (e.g., pharmacokinetics of lipid regulating drugs) the functionality of Martindale on DataStar now allows customers easily to retrieve just these sections.

Launched on DataStar in May, MEDITEC: Medical Engineering (label: BMED) provides bibliographic citations with abstracts on the scientific and economic aspects of this subject.

The citations in BMED contain the full range of biomedical engineering information including biomedical measurements, medical imaging, biomaterials and materials for medical instrumentation, medical instruments for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, clinical laboratory technology and dental technology, optometry and ophthalmological instruments, clinical engineering, prostheses and rehabilitation engineering, hospital management, and general aspects of medical engineering.

70% of this database is in English with additional search terms in German; 30% of the database is in German with additional search terms in English.

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Image Material

Much time and effort has been spent this year on updating the drug pipeline databases with images of compounds as chemical structures. Images can be viewed on all Dialog platforms and on DataStarWeb. The following databases have been enhanced in this way:

• Pharmaprojects
  (File128/label: PHAR/PHDI/PHLP)
• Prous Science Drug Data Report
  (label: PRDR)*
  
  
* Images for these Prous files have been available on Dialog for some time.

These additions to Dialog and DataStar make an already comprehensive collection of pharmaceutical, healthcare, and biomedical content that much better.

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