The tranSMART Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Wakefield, Mass., providing a global, open-source knowledge management platform for scientists to share pre-competitive translational research data, said 20 life sciences and technology organizations have made substantial commitments by joining its membership program.

Members not only become integral parts of the Foundation's community, they also provide the financial support necessary to sustain the organization and continually enhance the tranSMART open-source platform.

The benefits of membership include participation in sustaining the tranSMART open-source community, the opportunity to sit on the board of directors and membership on the 3C operating committees (Code, Content and Community). The work of the Foundation is directed by the board and carried out by the 3C committees, their component working groups and the foundation management team.

"Since launching the membership program one year ago, we have had tremendous support from pharmaceutical, biotech and technology companies, as well as academic institutions who have become engaged in our efforts," said Keith Elliston, Ph.D., tranSMART Foundation CEO. "These organizations realize the value that the tranSMART open-source platform can offer to the advancement of translational medicine research, and the role of the tranSMART Foundation in catalyzing this community. We appreciate the dedication and support of all of our members, who have helped us mobilize the community to produce two new versions of the platform over the past 18 months."

The tranSMART Foundation is launching a new membership campaign for 2015. It will encourage each of its current members to renew its memberships and will bring new members to the Foundation at both the gold and silver levels.

ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte, Oracle, PerkinElmer, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi and Takeda all have joined at the gold level, which includes a minimum investment of $100,000 per year to fund the foundation. Additionally, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan have joined as academic gold members. At this level, these organizations can elect a representative from their company to the tranSMART board of directors and have a representative on all three of the foundation's 3C operating committees.

Silver-level members include ARLION, AssureRx, Cognizant, Institute for Systems Biology, One Mind, Saama Technologies and the Hyve. Each of the silver members makes a minimum investment of $5,000 to $20,000 to help fund operations. Silver members have the opportunity to submit a representative to a pool of candidates to be elected the foundation's board, and can nominate one individual to one of the foundation's 3C committees.

The Foundation also has an affiliate program, whose members provide sponsorship and support for its activities. Affiliate members include BT-GS, Elevada, Harvard University and Rancho Biosciences.