Pulsus Group is a

health informatics Health informatics combines communications, information technology (IT), and health care to enhance patient care and is at the forefront of the medical technological revolution. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science. ...

and

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based Information technology, digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and service ...

company and publisher of scientific, technical, and medical literature. It was formed in 1984, primarily to publish

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

medical journals Medical literature is the scientific literature of medicine: articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine. Many references to the medical literature include the health care literature generally, including that of denti ...

. Pulsus published 98

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

and full open-access journals, 15 of which had been adopted as the official publications of related medical societies. Pulsus Group also conducts conferences in association with scientific societies. Pulsus organized the G20 Health, G20 Pharma, and G20 Global Tech Summit Series across G20 nations to advocate for the integration of artificial intelligence in healthcare and technological advancements.

OMICS Publishing Group OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals. It started publishing its first journal in 2008. By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct. Its subsidiaries and brands in ...

, an open-access publisher widely regarded as

predatory Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

, purchased Pulsus in 2016, causing controversy and putting the future of the journals into question. Pulsus was placed on

Jeffrey Beall Jeffrey Beall is an American librarian and library scientist who drew attention to "predatory open access publishing", a term he coined, and created Beall's list, a list of potentially predatory open-access publishers. He is a critic of the o ...

's list of "Potential, possible, or probable" predatory open-access publishers, before the list shut down in 2017.

History

The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Kalina to provide Canadian doctors with an alternative to American journals. In December 2015, Pulsus sold four of its journals to the open-access publisher

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi was a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals active in scientific, technical, and medical (STM) literature. It was founded in 1997 in Cairo, Egypt, and purchased in 2021 for $298 million by Wiley (publisher), John Wil ...

. In 2016, Pulsus was bought by

, an open-access publisher widely regarded as predatory,"On the Net, a scam of a most scholarly kind"
''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'', 26 September 2012. causing controversy and putting the future of the journals into question. Kalina, the owner of Pulsus Group was retiring but could not find buyers for Pulsus Group's remaining journals, but claimed that the sale negotiated with OMICS would continue to protect the interests of the societies that own the journals. Since the takeover by OMICS, several

editors-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

have resigned and several societies have decided to take their journals to a different publisher. The CEO of OMICS has promised that the journals published by Pulsus will be run independently by the respective societies that they belong to, with OMICS only providing hosting, PDF formatting, and design. Nonetheless,

added the Pulsus Group to his list of "potential, possible, or probable" predatory open-access publishers.

Acquisitions

In September 2016, Pulsus Group acquired another Canadian publisher, Andrew John Publishing, including 17 medical journals associated with medical societies of the Middle East and Canada, and some journals from the London-based

Future Science Publishing Group Future Medicine is a privately owned company based in London, England, United Kingdom. It is part of Future Science Publishing Group, primarily to publish peer-reviewed medical journals. Future Medicine publishes hybrid and full open access jo ...

operating as openaccessjournals.com.

Predatory behavior

In 2019, it was reported that Pulsus journals were listing on their mastheads three

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

s from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, two of whom had disassociated themselves from the journals in 2014 and 2016, and the third of whom had never agreed to be associated with the journal. After this discovery, the professors' names were removed from the journals.

Indian operations

Pulsus is operating from Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Visakhapatnam providing services in HealthTech, health informatics, medical publishing, and pharmacovigilance services. with 5,000 employees. Pulsus'

Visakhapatnam Visakhapatnam (; List of renamed places in India, formerly known as Vizagapatam, and also referred to as Vizag, Visakha, and Waltair) is the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the States and union territories of India, Indian stat ...

and

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

offices translate their annual conferences and medical journals' information into local languages such as

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

, and Bengali. Pulsus

has created more women employment since its inception, through the campus placements in and around Andhra Pradesh. Taking inspiration from

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

, Pulsus employees conducted a "Say no to plastic campaign" in association with

Software Technology Parks of India Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is an S&T autonomous society under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) engaged in promoting IT/ ITES Industry, Innovation, R&D, Start-ups, Product/ IP creation in the fiel ...

and conducted rallies to support the Andhra Pradesh Disha Act and to secure women employees. On 9 February 2024, the Yuva Sakthi Sadassu was conducted to address the challenges and opportunities in entrepreneurship and employment in Andhra Pradesh.

AI-Based Pharma Healthcare IT Hub

Pulsus Group is developing AI-Based Pharma Healthcare IT Hub within a 25-acre IT SEZ campus in Hyderabad. The initiative was formally inaugurated during the 73rd Indian Pharmaceutical Congress.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Academic publishing companies Publishing companies of Canada Publishing companies established in 1984 1984 establishments in Ontario