STM publisher Springer Science+Business Media, Germany, has announced an agreement to acquire open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central Group, UK, for an undisclosed amount. BioMed Central (BMC) was launched in May 2000 as an independent publishing house committed to providing free access to peer-reviewed research in the biological and medical sciences. It is projected to be the largest open access provider in the world with over 180 peer-reviewed journals.
BMC is projected to complement Springer's own OA initiative, Springer Open Choice, launched in 2004. It is also expected to boost Springer's position in life sciences and biomedicine, and allow the latter to offer societies a greater range of publishing options.
BMC's flagship journals include Journal of Biology, BMC Biology, BMC Medicine, Malaria Journal, BMC Bioinformatics and Genome Biology. The company, with approximately 150 employees, has revenues of about €
15 million per year. All its peer-reviewed research articles are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse.
Springer Science+Business Media is claimed to be the second-largest publisher of STM journals, the largest publisher of STM books and the largest B2B publisher in the German-language area. The group publishes over 1,700 journals and more than 5,500 new books a year, as well as an STM e-book collection that includes about 28,000 titles.
