SAN DIEGO– Accelrys, Inc., a leading scientific enterprise R&D software and services company, has launched a comprehensive Academic Program specifically focused on meeting the needs of academic communities—from students, teachers and researchers to IT support staff and university administrators—around the world. Demonstrating Accelrys’ strong commitment to science and higher education, the new Academic Program makes it easier for researchers to access and share state-of-the-art scientific software solutions that support collaboration, enhance innovation and accelerate discovery in university labs.

The new Academic Program simplifies and streamlines universities’ access to industry-proven software, including Accelrys’ Pipeline Pilot™ scientific enterprise R&D platform for process automation and information management, Discovery Studio® software for life sciences modeling and simulation and Materials Studio® software for materials modeling and simulation. Other Accelrys products that are highly valued by the academic community include the Accelrys Draw drawing package (available at no charge for academic use) and the Web-based DiscoveryGate portal, which provides online access to the premier chemical sourcing database, the Available Chemicals Directory.

Dr. Blair Johnston of the Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Strathclyde said, “Our innovative Drug Discovery Portal uses virtual screening protocols designed in Discovery Studio and automated in Pipeline Pilot to map new chemical compounds against known pharmacophores and output hits for further assessment. Pipeline Pilot’s ease of use enabled non-expert programmers here to build and deploy this successful application much more quickly than would have been possible using traditional development tools. Accelrys solutions are an invaluable resource in my research and student training projects.”

For qualifying organizations, the new Academic Program offers affordable, exclusively academic software packages – some of which include flexible teaching and site licensing options that can be tailored to the needs of individual institutions.

Recognizing that collaboration is a keystone of academic research, Accelrys’ new Academic Program supports information sharing and partnering with diverse research organizations. For the first time, academic researchers can publish Web applications developed with Accelrys software for external use by academic partners and collaborators. This easier sharing of industry-leading scientific software improves collaboration and experimental outcomes, driving faster publication timelines and increased citations for academic researchers using the applications. With pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical and other companies increasingly outsourcing R&D functions to academic laboratories, the program also supports academic groups working with commercial organizations.

“Accelrys’ new Academic Program enables R&D-driven universities to implement and deploy affordable, state-of-the-art scientific solutions that improve the quality of research and speed the process,” said Accelrys Senior Vice President and Chief Science Officer Frank Brown, Ph.D. “Hands-on experience with industry-leading Accelrys tools in the university setting prepares students for future success in academic, commercial and government labs around the world.”

For more information on Accelrys’ new Academic Program, visit its Academic microsite or stop by booth 502 at the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting & Exposition being held Aug 29-31 in Denver. Experts from Accelrys will be on hand to demonstrate its latest software and database releases.

Dr. Blair Johnston of the University of Strathclyde will outline how his team is leveraging Accelrys’ Academic solutions in a webinar entitled “Building the Drug Discovery Portal” on Sept. 13, 2011. Register at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/501486958.

About Accelrys, Inc.

Accelrys (NASDAQ:ACCL), a leading scientific enterprise R&D software and services company, supports industries and organizations that rely on science as a differentiator. Accelrys’ Enterprise Research & Development Architecture, built on the industry-leading Pipeline Pilot™ platform, provides a broad, flexible scientific solution optimized to integrate the diversity of science, experimental processes and information requirements across the research, development, process scale-up and early manufacturing phases of product development. Through its Enterprise R&D Architecture and market-leading electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs), Accelrys enables scientific innovators to access, organize, analyze and share data in unprecedented ways, enhancing innovation, improving productivity and compliance, reducing costs and speeding time from lab to market.

Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Accelrys has more than 1,300 customers in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, energy, chemicals, aerospace, consumer packaged goods and industrial products industries and employs approximately 150 full-time Ph.D. scientists. For more information about Accelrys, visit www.accelrys.com.