After 6 years, the Global Alliance of Publication Professionals (GAPP) team has announced that, effective as of the close of the ISMPP meeting on May 2, 2018, the team will be retired.

In a press release, the GAPP team described the founding of the group in 2012 as a rapid response mechanism to counter misinformed or outdated articles about professional medical writing, publication planning and pharmaceutical industry sponsored publications. The original team incorporated individuals who served in leadership roles in the three main professional organisations – the American and European Medical Writers Associations (AMWA, EMWA) and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) – and who were located in different regions of the globe. The team has since maintained this mix and geographic spread.

In the statement, the team outlined their view that the conversation about industry funded research has been moving toward data disclosure and clinical trial transparency for some time. The volume of articles about industry sponsored medical publications has decreased, and though misinformed or poorly researched articles are still being published, they have been focussing less and less on professional medical writing support. The team responded to only 4 articles in 2017.

Following approximately 50 responses over 6 years, the team feel that GAPP has served its purpose and the professional organisations have evolved to a point that GAPP can hand back responsibility for rebuttals and responses to the respective governing bodies. The team is confident that the professional organisations will act in concert to develop timely and influential responses that will serve to educate both colleagues and critics.

The GAPP website and response archive will be maintained, and the contact@gappteam.org email address will still be monitored for any member of the profession to report an article they think justifies a response.

The retiring GAPP team thanked previous members as well as those who have referred articles over the years, and urged people to continue to be vigilant for inaccurate, misinformed or outdated articles about the profession. The outgoing team are:

• Jackie Marchington, Caudex, a McCann Health Company, Oxford, UK; ISMPP Advocacy & Outreach Committee co-Chair
• Cindy Hamilton, USA; Past AMWA President and Founding Member of GAPP
• Art Gertel, Principal, MedSciCom, LLC, Lebanon, USA; Past AMWA President and Founding Member of GAPP
• Serina Stretton, Proscribe, part of the Envision Pharma Group, Macquarie Park, Australia
• Julia Donnelly, Julia Donnelly Solutions, Derbyshire, UK; Past EMWA President.