Insightful Announces S+ArrayAnalyzer 2.0; Rigorous Statistical Modeling Software Improves Drug Discovery Accuracy For Growing DNA Microarray Market
Insightful Corporation, a leading provider of software solutions for analysis of numeric and text data, announced S+ArrayAnalyzer 2.0(TM), a statistically-robust and highly-adaptable microarray analysis software product that complements the company’s popular S-PLUS(R) data analysis platform.
Microarray analysis is a revolutionary and fast-growing assay technology in the pharmaceutical industry that provides an understanding of the interactions between gene expression, disease pathways and drug response. Statistical analysis of microarray experiments is crucial in many applications including identifying and evaluating new drugs, developing biomarkers and diagnostics, classifying diseases, and creating personalized patient treatment plans.
“As the microarray market matures, there is a growing demand for statistically-robust solutions that can accurately analyze data and facilitate effective decision-making,” states Isaac Meek, industry analyst and team leader for Frost & Sullivan’s Drug Discovery Group. “Insightful is a leading player in this market, and is uniquely positioned to meet these demands.”
“This release deepens the capabilities of S+ArrayAnalyzer and enables our customers to obtain statistically rigorous information from microarray technology, shortening time-to-discovery for competitive advantage,” said Jeff Coombs, CEO, of Insightful. “S+ArrayAnalyzer is a key component in our rapidly evolving Insightful Life Sciences Discovery and Development product family, currently including solutions for drug discovery, pre-clinical testing, and clinical biostatistics.”
S+ArrayAnalyzer provides statisticians, computational biologists and informaticians with software workflows for data access, QC data diagnostics, robust data preparation, rigorous statistical modeling and annotated graphical reporting. These workflows improve the accuracy of microarray data analysis through powerful identification of true positives, simultaneous reduction of false positives, and optimal signal extraction from high-throughput data streams.
The product supports the entire data analysis lifecycle from accessing standard industry-recognized data sources, such as Affymetrix and custom 2-channel arrays, to applying “best practice” models developed by Insightful in collaboration with internationally-recognized researchers at Harvard, Berkeley, John Hopkins and the University of Virginia.
“S+ArrayAnalyzer has an excellent feature set, combining the best of the academic Bioconductor community with a statistically-robust, commercial-grade software implementation,” said Richard Park, computational data analyzer, Joslin Diabetes Center. “The probe-level methods, linear models for multifactor experiments, cluster analysis, gene list management, and annotation tools provide comprehensive workflows for extracting key information from microarray experiments. These workflows enable our organization to streamline work processes and improve the accuracy of discovery reporting.”
Key features for S+ArrayAnalyzer 2.0 include:
— Enhanced access and analysis for Affymetrix and two-channel microarray data
— Rigorous statistical analysis
— Flexible deployment: interfaces for desktop and Web
— Robust quality control and data diagnostics: gene and chip filtering
— Advanced probe-level analysis for Affymetrix chips including RMA, GC-RMA, MAS5, MBEI, and combination methods
— Reliable normalization methods for Affymetrix and 2-channel data
— Precise and powerful tests for differential expression: distribution and permutation based tests; linear models (e.g., ANOVA, nested models) for time course and multi-factor designs
— Increased accuracy for low-replicate experiments
— Rich class discovery and prediction methods e.g. hierarchical, partitioning and model-based clustering
— Annotation and gene list management
— Interactive and publication quality tabular and graphical reports
— Open and extensible development environment
System Requirements
S+ArrayAnalyzer 2.0 requires S-PLUS 6.2 and MS Windows XP Pro, 2000, 2003 Server.
About Insightful
Insightful Corporation (Nasdaq:IFUL) provides enterprises with scalable data analysis solutions that drive better decisions faster by revealing patterns, trends and relationships. The company is a leading supplier of software and services for statistical data analysis, data mining and knowledge access, enabling clients to gain intelligence from numeric and text data.
Insightful products include S-PLUS(R), Insightful Miner, S-PLUS(R) Server and InFact(R). Insightful consulting services provide specialized expertise and proven processes for the design, development and deployment of customized solutions. The company has been delivering industry-leading, high-ROI solutions for 17 years to thousands of companies in financial services, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, telecommunications, manufacturing, plus government and research institutions.
Headquartered in Seattle, Insightful has offices in New York City, North Carolina, France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with distributors around the world. For more information, visit www.insightful.com, email info@insightful.com, or call 1-800-569-0123.
Note to Investors — Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about capabilities of our software, the size of the microarray analysis market and our ability to successfully penetrate it, and our ability to meet the needs of our customers. Forward-looking statements are based on the judgment and opinions of management at the time the statements are made. Inaccurate assumptions and known and unknown risks and uncertainties can affect the accuracy of forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements for a number of reasons, including, without limitation, the risks associated with errors or defects in our software and the risks associated with market demand and customer acceptance of our products. More detailed information regarding these and other factors that could affect actual results is set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. You should not unduly rely on these forward-looking statements which apply only as of the date of this release. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events, or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated events.
