Company Announcements

Cheminformatics firm ChemAxon announced in May a strategic partnership with SciBit, a semantic analytics company.

ChemAxon and Bio-ITech announced in July the integration of their respective Marvin JS chemical drawing browser component with the eLABJournal ELN.

In October, ChemAxon integrated its Marvin JS tool with ONTOFORCE’s DISQOVER for semantic searches for medicinal chemistry.

In September, Riffyn announced the integration of its platform with OSIsoft PI Server software, which many customers rely on as a primary data source for fermentation performance and analysis using the Data Agent software.

In September, Optibrium, Intellegens and Medicines Discovery Catapult received a grant from Innovate UK to fund a $1.3 million (£1 million) project to work with UK’s Medicines Discovery Catapult over the next two years to apply machine learning in drug discovery, specifically ADMET.

In September, Enigma Biomedical Group announced a collaboration agreement with Invicro, a Konica Minolta company, to develop Synaptic Density Biomarker Imaging for understanding neurodegenerative diseases. Enigma will hold the various commercial and distribution licenses and be responsible for development and global tracer access. Invicro will focus on informatics solutions for better interpretation.

Linguamatics, a natural language processing text analytics provider, and data management firm LabKey announced in September an integrated solution designed to streamline the extraction and curation of valuable insights from large volumes of unstructured clinical notes and reports.

In September, LIMS provider LabVantage Solutions named John Heiser as CEO, replacing President Ram Velidi. Most recently, Mr. Heiser was president and COO of Magnetrol, a manufacturer of advanced process control solutions.

LIMS firm Accelerated Technology Laboratories (ATL) entered into a strategic partnership in September with Sequence, a provider of quality and compliance solutions. Sequence has become an ATL Certified Delivery Partner.

In October, PerkinElmer partnered with Elemental Machines. The companies introduced the Asset Genius system for Laboratory Monitoring, the latest addition to PerkinElmer’s OneSource Laboratory Services and analytical solutions. The Asset Genius solution continuously monitors lab and asset conditions’ advanced analytics to provide utilization data 24/7. Wireless sensors monitor lab and asset parameters, such as temperature, humidity, air pressure and light, plus utilization of equipment like freezers, refrigerators, ovens and incubators, to ensure that potential problems are addressed quickly.

Xconomy announced in October that Elemental Partners this summer raised $9 million as part of a Series A round led by new investor Digitalis Ventures. Total outside investments are now around $11.5 million.

In October, chemistry software firm Cresset integrated its platform with Elixir Software’s cloud-based chemTraX platform for real-time workflow tracking for managing, analyzing and reporting all processes within and between drug discovery projects.

LabArchives partnered with OpenStax in October to integrate their respective digital lab notebooks and textbooks.

In October, Schrödinger, which conducts drug discovery through advanced computational methods and enterprise software solutions, and WuXi AppTec, a pharmaceutical and medical device R&D enabling platform company, formed Faxian Therapeutics. The new venture will leverage the precision molecular design platforms developed by Schrödinger and accelerate them through partnership with the lead optimization services provided by WuXi AppTec.

Product Introductions

In September, Genestack released the Expression Data Miner for interrogating and visualizing transcriptomics data at scale. It also announced the Omics Data Management app, to be released in spring 2019, for loading, curating and processing of large volumes of public and private multi-omics datasets.

Riffyn, a provider of research design, data capture, and analytics software, launched in October Riffyn Open Access, providing free use of its Scientific Development Environment to any members of a nonprofit organization.

In October, Abbott Informatics debuted v11 of the STARLIMS Life Sciences Solution, its LIMS platform for pre-clinical, clinical, biorepository, molecular and academic research. A partnership between Abbott Informatics and Data Innovations enables STARLIMS Life Sciences Solution to be directly connected with a wider range of third-party instrumentation. In addition, STARLIMS Life Sciences Solution has now been converted to HTML5.

Genedata debuted in October the Genedata Imagence, calling it the first commercial and instrument-agnostic software that automates the analysis of HCS images. Currently available in an early access program, the software is scheduled to begin licensing in early 2019.

In October, Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD/Labs) released ACD/Spectrus v2018.1, which includes updated LuminataMetaSense features, new additions for NMR and MS dereplication, and the new ACD/Method Selection Suite for chromatography.

Elemental Machines launched in October Element-D (Data), an IoT data collection device that connects OEM instruments to the cloud to automate the collection of scientific data and metadata, such as maintenance and calibration records, and critical performance and utilization metrics.

Sales and Orders of Note

In September, Genedata announced an extension of its long-term partnership with Bayer. Genedata currently supports Bayer’s Crop Science division. This extends the partnership to include a license to the Genedata Selector. Genedata will support Bayer in the processing, storing, analysis and evaluation of genomic data for the development of new fungicides against field fungi.

In October, Certara announced that the FDA has renewed, and in many cases increased, its number of Certara software licenses for reviewing new drug and biologics applications. The increase includes the use of Certara’s Phoenix software platform to nearly four hundred users. The FDA has also renewed its licenses for the physiologically based pharmacokinetic Simcyp Population-based, Pediatric, Animal and Cardiac Safety Simulators.

Cresset announced in October that Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute has licensed its Flare platform for insights into structure-based drug design. The Institute currently uses Cresset’s Spark, Forge and Torch ligand-focused applications.