The blogs have been all atwitter this week (pun intended) regarding the embargo policy at ADA. Apparently, the embargo (below) lifts on June 26 – almost two weeks after the abstracts were posted online.
All meeting abstracts are governed by the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions embargo policy. An embargo means that information from any abstract or presentation may not be announced, publicized or distributed before the embargo date and time. This applies to all formats of abstract publication—including abstracts on CD, the hard copy Diabetes Abstract Book, online via the Association’s website, scientificsessions.diabetes.org, and other presentations.
As Ivan Oransky says on his blog, “In other words, all of those abstracts are freely available online, but no one can write about them…”
Many of the more prolific biotech writers, including TheStreet.com’s Adam Feuerstein, are taking to Twitter to talk about why it is that they can’t write about the abstracts. Oransky makes the interesting point that analysts are not beholden to any embargo to make their stock picks. Rather, the information is public, it will be used, and sadly journalists are the only ones unable to discuss it.
Like ASCO before it, ADA’s release of the abstracts online affords the market a sneak-peak at the data to be presented. Why, then, are they uncomfortable with media use? Wouldn’t it benefit them to have some interest ahead of the conference?
I guess we’ll never know.
