We believe the public-private partnership (P3) between the University of Alberta and OMx Personal Health Analytics Inc. has helped to greatly improve the breadth, currency and quality of data in DrugBank. It is becoming exceedingly difficult to maintain active, heavily used open-access databases for an extended period of time, especially with current public funding models. However, through this partnership DrugBank is now supported by a much larger team of curators, developers and other supporting staff who are dedicated to improving and maintaining an open-access version DrugBank. As such, we believe this rather unique arrangement substantially benefits both the academic research community and the general public. Indeed, this may be a useful model for other data resources wishing to ensure long-term sustainability, accuracy and currency.
