IDBS Forms Alliances with Australian Biotechnology Organisations
Guildford, United Kingdom, March 15, 2004 – ID Business Solutions (IDBS), leading provider of integrated data management, analysis and decision-making software for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and animal health industries, today announced several collaborations in Australia. CSIRO, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Alchemia are among the organisations that have adopted IDBS’ ActivityBase software suite to manage their chemical and biological drug discovery data. Neil Kipling, Chairman and CEO of IDBS, commented: “The biotechnology sector in Australia is growing, and this uptake of ActivityBase by such pre-eminent companies in Australia is indicative of IDBS’ leadership in the market.” He continued, “A solid foundation of data integration is an integral part of efficient discovery operations, as is the ability for multiple departments to share essential information. We are pleased to be able to fulfill this need.”
Customer Applications
CSIRO Molecular Science (CMS) is a division of CSIRO (Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) (www.csiro.au/molsci ) The Molecular Discovery Programme is primarily focused on the collaborative discovery and development of agrochemical, animal health and pharmaceutical products. CMS installed ActivityBase late in 2001. According to Dr. Paul Savage, Programme Leader for Molecular Engineering: “ActivityBase saves time and money because all samples and results are in one place and easily accessible. Knowledge and results from previous projects can be stored and that information is searchable and available to gain leverage in new work.” The Molecular Discovery team attribute some of their success in attracting new collaborators to their strategy of centralising information within ActivityBase. “Data from each project is securely separated, without us having to maintain multiple copies of database files,” said Dr. Savage. “Since ActivityBase is widely used in the industry it provides collaborators with extra assurance of the security and quality of data, whilst streamlining data sharing.”
Alchemia Ltd employs its proprietary drug discovery technology platform, called VASTTM technology, in a series of hit-discovery and hit-to-lead optimisation programmes, either in-house or in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies. Alchemia creates small, focused libraries of pure compounds, which are subsequently screened to provide matrices of data. Alchemia integrates all its data within ActivityBase from IDBS. Wim Meutermans, Director of Chemistry, commented: “As VAST™ libraries independently and systematically explore structural and functional requirements for target binding, we need a similarly versatile database technology that enables us to analyse SAR in these terms. We find that ActivityBase is well suited to our needs, is user friendly and highly versatile.”
Cerylid Biosciences (www.cerylid.com.au ) is a drug discovery company based in Melbourne, focused on the discovery and development of novel, small-molecule pharmaceuticals from naturally occurring compounds. Cerylid has one of the world’s largest natural product libraries containing extracts from samples of microbes, plants and marine organisms from the Australasian region. The discovery researchers at Cerylid use XLfit from IDBS to carry out curve fitting and statistical analysis within the Microsoft® Excel environment. They use it to interrogate screening data both as part of assay development and when testing compounds in one or more biological assays. Gian Sberna, Research Manager of the screening group, said: “At Cerylid we have found XLfit to be particularly useful for the accurate calculation of IC50 data. It is easy to use both for simple and complex data sets, with user-friendly options for manipulating and representing data.”
About IDBS
IDBS works with discovery organisations to maximise the value of research data, by providing software solutions to capture, manage and use biological and chemical information in an integrated framework. Unlike resource-intensive tool-based solutions, IDBS delivers complete — and proven — applications that bridge the gap between IT and science. Headquartered in Guildford, United Kingdom, IDBS has offices in Emeryville, California; Parsippany, New Jersey; and, Cambridge, Massachusetts. IDBS partners with CTC Laboratory Systems in Japan to market IDBS products and services. Founded in 1989, IDBS employs over 150 people worldwide.
About ActivityBase
ActivityBase is an integrated data management software application that incorporates high-throughput and high-content screening, multiple full dose response determinations, lead optimisation, pharmacology and toxicology studies, quantitative expression data handling and inventory tracking, combined with the ability to register, manage and display chemical structures and reactions. Through the implementation of ActivityBase, scientists can easily define and run experiments, capture, visualise and analyse the information derived and then share the data throughout the company and with collaborators to help streamline the discovery research process.
Media Contact
Beth Thomas, Marketing Communications Manager
IDBS, 2 Occam Court, Surrey Research Park
Guildford, Surrey GU2 7QB, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1483 595010
Fax: +44 (0) 1483 595001
Email: bthomas@id-bs.com
