Company Announcements

Amazon Web Services joined the NIH’s Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability Initiative (STRIDES) in June. The STRIDES Initiative aims to harness the power of commercial cloud computing for NIH biomedical researchers. Initially, NIH’s efforts will focus on making high-value data sets more accessible to researchers and experimenting with new ways to optimize technology-intensive research.

In November, Optibrium entered into a collaboration with the University of Nottingham. The company’s StarDrop software will be available to a number of fourth-year MSci Chemistry project students as part of their training in modern drug discovery. It will aid in the design of potential new candidate compounds for integrin inhibition in fibrotic diseases and malaria, as part of a collaboration with GSK.

In November, Bioz, an AI search engine for scientific experimentation, partnered with DNASTAR. DNASTAR software supports molecular biology, structural biology and genomics.

ELN firm LabArchives announced in November a partnership with John Wiley & Sons to integrate their respective LabArchives Classroom Edition with Current Protocols Essential Laboratory Techniques for use by instructors, teaching assistants and students. The combined offering will be available beginning in January 2019.

Genedata announced in December the establishment of a subsidiary in Singapore.

In December, molecular simulation company Schrödinger and Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company announced a research collaboration to accelerate the discovery of novel central nervous system therapeutics. Schrödinger will focus on lead discovery and optimization, while SPARC will be responsible for compound synthesis and assays.

Schrödinger and the TB Alliance entered into a three-year research collaboration in December to speed the development of next generation TB treatments by leveraging Schrödinger’s advanced computational platform for drug discovery. The joint team will focus on the discovery of efficacious inhibitors of PknB, which is essential for the growth of Mycobacterium TB.

In December, Synthace, provider of a cloud software platform for automating and improving the success rate of biological R&D, closed a $25.6 million Series B financing round led by Horizons Ventures.

LIMS firm Autoscribe Informatics appointed Labcom Technology as a distributor in December for Bangladesh.

In December, Vyasa Analytics, which provides deep learning software and analytics, joined Accenture’s Life Sciences Ecosystem, which is designed to assist innovation in drug discovery.

In December, DeepMatter, developer of the DigitalGlassware platform for chemistry, agreed to acquire cheminformatics company Infochem from Springer Nature for €2.0 million ($2.3 million). Infochem has 25 employees.

Product Introductions

In November, Accenture, a global professional services company, announced the creation of an open partner ecosystem designed to help independent software vendors and life science companies team more effectively to accelerate drug discovery efforts and improve patient outcomes. The ecosystem is an integral part of the cloud-based informatics research platform that Accenture and Merck (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada) are developing. Companies integrating their capabilities include Clarivate Analytics, Dotmatics, SciBite, Scilligence and Vyasa.

In December, RURO released the Limfinity ML (Machine Learning) addition for its Limfinity 7 framework. Limfinity ML is built around superfast, multilayer Artificial Neural Network algorithms.

Biomax Informatics launched in December the NeuroXM Brain Science Suite. The Suite lets brain scientists work interactively with high-dimensional multimodal brain data ranging from neuroimaging to genetics and transcriptomics.

Sales and Orders of Note

In November, Genedata licensed the Genedata Bioprocess enterprise platform to Sartorius Stedim Cellca, a subsidiary of Sartorius Stedim Biotech and a specialist for cell line development and bioanalytical services for large-scale protein production. The platform will be used in the company’s labs in Germany, the UK, the US and South Korea.

Certara, a company providing model-informed drug development, regulatory science, real-world evidence and market access, announced in November that it was awarded two new dermal virtual bioequivalence grants by the US FDA. Certara’s Simcyp Division will lead the project entitled “Characterize Skin Physiology Parameters Utilized in Dermal PBPK Model Development Across Different Skin Disease States.”