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LABORATORY INFORMATICS
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ACD/Labs and SORD capture ‘lost chemistry’ The Selected Organic Reactions Database (SORD) is tapping into the vast reserves of chemical reaction information from academic research that has been locked away for half a century. Using technology by Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD/Labs) millions of these reactions will be processed into an electronic format that is accessible over the internet.
O3Lims & O3LimsXpress Bytewize has released version 4.3 of its LIMS-systems, O3Lims and O3LimsXpress. The systems are constantly developing and customers are automatically updated to the latest version without any extra cost. In version 4.3, it is possible to configure the system to automatically send status mails to the laboratory´s customers as the sample passes certain defined steps in the testing process.
Paradigm Scientific Search Software Waters has announced it is expanding its laboratory informatics offerings with the addition of Paradigm Scientific Search Software, an information access platform. The company says it takes search beyond basic keywords by enabling users to perform object-based searches across both structured and unstructured data, and across different data platforms.
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Beth Harlen looks at recent changes within the informatics market
year. Other companies have also been out shopping – in 2011, for example, Perkin Elmer bought CambridgeSoft, Caliper Life Sciences, Labtronics and ArtusLabs.
W Insiders believe there will be more
mergers and acquisitions. What is driving this trend and what are the implications for scientists? One factor is the nature of the vendor community itself, while another is the behaviour and expectations of customers. The market is fragmented – there
are many small companies supplying informatics products – so we are seeing a consolidation. But users want to move away from a laboratory that has many ‘siloed’ applications and towards an integrated, single-solution laboratory. In part, this convergence is driven by the needs of scientists, but their bosses also want their laboratories to be more efficient. Michael Elliott, CEO of Atrium Research and Consulting, said: ‘Companies that rely on informatics are facing substantial cutbacks in both capital and expenditure, and the consolidation and closure of sites throughout the organisation. Generally, when this occurs within the user community, it is mirrored by a level of supplier consolidation as companies attempt to address customers in a more concentrated fashion.’ Max Carnecchia, Accelrys’ CEO, noted that, when he joined the firm,
4 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD
hen Accelrys aquired Vialis earlier this year, it marked the company’s fourth such deal in a
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Careful consolidation?
more than 400 organisations were identified within the informatics market, each with annual revenues of $1 million or more: ‘The vendor community has become far too fragmented and it’s impossible for users to stitch together all these little, best-of-breed, point-products and come up with an environment and set of capabilities that will meet needs in the longer term. ‘There’s not a week that goes by
where I don’t get a phone call, email or FedEx packet from one of those 400 informatics companies looking to sell itself. Some of those are great opportunities, but most are distressed situations, where these companies have seen the writing on the wall. They can no longer continue as they have been, due to the shift in customer behaviours.’ He also noted the financial imperatives from higher management
from discrete informatics products has led to mergers and acquisitions. Accelrys’ purchase of Vialis has two noteworthy aspects. Firstly, it exemplifies a push by informatics providers to add a services element to their offerings. But this may be problematic for the industry. According to Elliott, one of the challenges that comes with vendors expanding their service offering is a perception that the services are there simply to sell product. ‘Historically, there really hasn’t been a software vendor in this space that’s been successful in having a truly independent services offering that can help customers go through workflow analysis and determine which products fit best,’ he said.
Elliott added that the decision to meet the high valuation of $5 million for Vialis was unexpected, given that for
COMPANIES CANNOT CONTINUE AS
THEY HAVE BEEN, DUE TO THE SHIFT IN CUSTOMER BEHAVIOURS
driving technological consolidation within the laboratory, remarking that, for example, 10 years ago, a computational chemist in a life sciences company would have had a decent budget and the freedom to use different systems for in silico modelling and simulation. ‘Fast forward, and half that team has been laid off, and the company has had to standardise on one system.’ Convergence can be seen in the behaviour of large vendors such as Waters, which has launched products that no longer fit the traditional category of a laboratory information management system, or an electronic laboratory notebook, but include a combination of technologies rolled into one solution. For other companies, this shift away
the same level of investment Accelrys could have built up its own capability within that area. However, Carnecchia maintained that, rather than trying to ‘roll up the space’, Accelrys is attempting to assemble a portfolio of capabilities both through acquisitions and also organically, through its own internal R&D engineering efforts. He pointed out that while Accelrys has invested more than $100 million on acquisitions, it has also spent 22 per cent of revenues on internal activities. With regards to the acquisitions, he is keen to emphasise that the company is adding domain expertise and that many employees, including the founders, of recently purchased Contur, VelQuest and Aegis have remained part of Accelrys.
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