Nature and BioCentury will improve the efficiency and speed with which innovative life science research is translated into commercial value by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries
Nature and BioCentury Publications have entered a joint publishing agreement that will leverage the business intelligence of the latter and the scientific acumen of the former.
The two companies announced the agreement at the start of the Online Information 2007 conference in London.
The biopharmaceutical industry and its investors are inundated with complex scientific papers describing the latest discoveries each week.
According to Medline, the US National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database of references to articles in life sciences, over 600,000 articles were added to the database in 2006 alone - an average of almost 12,000 new articles every week.
This outpouring of data can overwhelm even the most sophisticated knowledge management systems, not to mention the resources of venture capital and biopharma business development teams.
As a result, the commercial and investment potential of disruptive, novel science can be overlooked, so that investment opportunities are lost and emerging competition is unseen.
"Understanding the business context and commercial relevance of new science is the key to lowering investment risk and stimulating industry innovation," said David Flores, co-founder, president and CEO of BioCentury.
"There is an urgent need to translate early stage research into new medicines and tools for drug discovery, and this collaboration will help academia, the biopharma industry and investors bridge this divide".
The BioCentury and NPG enterprise will help distill the flood of complex scientific papers by filtering and analysing key findings within the most up to-date scientific and business context.
It will provide indispensable resources for biotechnology and pharmaceutical executives, business development specialists, drug discovery and development teams, venture capitalists and other investment professionals who wish to identify new projects and potential new partners, find enabling technology and scan their environment for disruptive competitive advances.
"The first fruits of this agreement will be available early next year and will provide a single, authoritative, objective and reliable information resource that reports on high impact science in a business context," said Peter Collins, publishing director for Nature Publishing.
"If your next strategic or investment decision depends on understanding the scientific and business context of cutting edge science and technology, then you need a trusted source of information.
"BioCentury and Nature are the trusted authorities in our respective areas of expertise and know that together we can create compelling new products and services that will bring added value in this space".
The publishing agreement brings together the biopharmaceutical business intelligence of BioCentury and the scientific acumen of Nature Publishing, home of the flagship science journal Nature.
A joint editorial and research team, under the direction of Karen Bernstein, co-founder, chairman and editor-in-chief of BioCentury, will combine the core skills and editorial integrity of both BioCentury and NPG.
This team will evaluate high impact peer-reviewed scientific articles each week and pick the most commercially relevant findings that merit deeper analysis.
This multidisciplinary approach will provide scientific context, identify potential commercial impact and describe the next steps required to translate the newest developments in the lab into innovative healthcare solutions.
The editorial team will be supported by unmatched in-house databases containing information on thousands of public and private biopharma companie, compounds and financial transactions.
