BioData Joins New Macmillan Digital Science Division
TEL AVIV, Israel–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BioData Ltd. announced today that Digital Science a new division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., acquired an equity stake in BioData as part of their new strategy to focus on providing world-class software tools and services to scientists, managers and funders with the ultimate aim of making research more productive through the use of technology.
The activities of Digital Science will build on the reputation for editorial and technological excellence of its sister company, Nature Publishing Group (NPG), but will focus on technology-based solutions for research rather than scientific content. The new venture will combine Macmillan’s in-house capabilities with external expertise from a range of partners. Currently announced commercial partners include BioData, SureChem, and Symplectic.
BioData provides flexible, affordable laboratory management systems for scientists, principal investigators and lab managers. Its main service is an innovative web-based application that enables both small and large research groups to stay organized without resorting to more expensive, rigid enterprise software systems.
BioData is the brainchild of Jonathan Gross, who holds a BA in computer science and M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the Hebrew University. During his studies, Jonathan worked in several research labs, enabling him to better understand the challenges of running a research group and make use of his programming skills to support a variety of tasks and routines in the lab. These experiences provided the trigger and motivation for the formation of BioData in August 2007.
BioKM, BioData’s innovative online software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool for research management incorporates state-of-the-art technology that combines the ability to simplify research logistics together with powerful knowledge management tailored to life science research. BioKM enables researchers to easily manage their research, and coordinate group and individual projects. Furthermore, it ensures research continuity, understands the relation between different research entities, tracks research materials, documents, biological collections and much more. BioData is a community-driven company that has continuously worked with Principal Investigators and their students to better understand their needs and to improve its service.
“BioData’s system represents a new type of software tool for researchers,” said Timo Hannay, Managing Director of Digital Science. “It’s intuitive, flexible and cost-effective, and deserves to be widely used. We’re greatly impressed by the vision and achievements of Jonathan and his colleagues, and are excited to be working with them to further enhance their offering and grow the number of labs who can benefit from it. Scientific research is at the beginning of a transformative digital age, and BioData is one of a breed of new companies that will be powering it.”
“We are very happy to join forces with Digital Science, this is a great opportunity to continue to develop tools and services for the research community. Day-to-day laboratory work involves tedious tasks not always directly related to the discovery process. BioData’s main purpose is to become the lab gateway, enabling the researchers to focus on science and less on the logistics of doing science. BioData enables better teamwork and easier monitoring of the experiments held in the lab. This partnership will enable us to reach more labs and provide better tools for better research,” said Jonathan Gross, Co-CEO & Founder of BioData.
