Companies to deliver joint informatics platform to enhance collaboration among chemical and biological researchers
IBM and IDBS have announced a global strategic alliance to create a powerful informatics platform for drug discovery that integrates both chemical and biological data.
The platform is designed to increase R and D efficiency, improve collaboration among researchers, and accelerate drug discovery.
According to a Tufts University study, getting a new drug to market can cost as much as $800 million.
The development cycle can take up to 15 years.
Throughout this process, a major challenge for the industry is accessing and effectively using available research data, such as the biological activities of drug candidates and recent discoveries about the human genome.
The application of informatics solutions that address these issues can bring significant efficiencies to the discovery and development process.
Through the agreement, IBM and IDBS will deliver combined offerings designed to help drug discovery organisations maximise the value of their research data.
IBM's high-performance computing and storage systems and infrastructure software for managing data, data integration and collaboration will be coupled with IDBS's industry standard software for the capture, organisation, integration, and analysis of biological and chemical drug discovery data.
"IBM and IDBS are pooling our substantial technology resources to help our pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers respond quickly to the new realities of the marketplace," said Carol Kovac, general manager, IBM Life Sciences.
"Our customers are facing an urgent need to bring new drugs to the market faster and more cost effectively.
They are asking for integrated solutions that will tie together their drug discovery processes.
The joint IBM-IDBS offering is a compelling option that creates a more collaborative environment for chemical and biological researchers." The new end-to-end solution could help researchers trim years and millions of dollars from the drug discovery process by delivering consolidated scientific data - chemical and biological - from a wide variety of internal and external sources, when it is needed and in a format that can be readily utilised in R and D processes.
"I firmly believe that the IBM and IDBS alliance represents the breakthrough that the pharmaceutical industry is expecting of information technology and informatics vendors," said Neil Kipling, IDBS's CEO and chairman. "Working in partnership with our mutual customers, IDBS and IBM offer a unique strategic proposition for leveraging informatics in order to reduce cycle times, increase productivity and lower the overall cost of research." IBM and IDBS will jointly market and sell IDBS software optimised for IBM systems. These include ActivityBase, IDBS's software for integrating biological and chemical drug discovery data, DiscoveryChannel, a web-based data mining application, and Discovery Warehouse for consolidation of large data volumes.
These applications have been optimised for IBM eServer pSeries systems running AIX, IBM's Unix operating system, with IBM DB2 Universal Database, DiscoveryLink data integration technology, and WebSphere internet infrastructure software.
"The collaboration between IDBS and IBM leverages the capabilities of both companies to create an invaluable tool for drug discovery," said William Janzen, vice president of operations at Amphora Discovery, a privately held biopharmaceutical company.
"IDBS is already a critical part of our drug discovery systems.
Adding IBM's resources and expertise in data management will fill the significant need in the industry for software to seamlessly integrate bioinformatic and cheminformatic data, which represent a key bottleneck in drug discovery today." Business consulting services professionals from IBM and IDBS's Consultancy Services group will offer implementation services for the combined solution.
This pairing provides a global reach as well as an in-depth understanding of drug discovery issues, and delivers fast and efficient deployment in a manner that easily accommodates customers' future integration needs.
The strategic alliance extends an existing relationship between IBM and IDBS that has enabled mutual customers to use IDBS discovery informatics software applications on IBM eServer systems.
Both technologies are used by some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
IDBS becomes a premier partner in IBM's PartnerWorld for Developers programme, a status reserved for top-tier strategic alliance partners.
The IDBS strategic alliance is another example of IBM's commitment to go to market with leading independent software vendors (ISVs) through the PartnerWorld for Developers programme.
Under this initiative, IBM has signed agreements with recognised software leaders.
These alliances target industries such as financial services, retail, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, and solution segments including enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management and business intelligence.
The goal is to provide developers with access to new customers and revenue opportunities through IBM's marketing, sales, and solutions resources.
And as part of the agreement developers commit to lead with IBM's middleware, server platforms, and services in offerings to customers.
