Tools & Techniques

Big changes are in the air at Tripos Inc., from streamlining of operations to potential major restructuring down the road—it’s just that no one, not even the leaders of the company, have any firm idea where that change may ultimately lead.

Tripos Inc. and InforSense recently announced an alliance whereby Tripos’ discovery informatics tools and software portfolio will be intergrated with the InforSense KDE workflow-based integrative informatics platform. The alliance continues both companies’ work to provide drug discovery researchers with a streamlined approach to integrating data sets from disparate tools and software via a single workflow tool. In conjunction with the alliance, Tripos joins InforSense’s Open Workflow Partner Network (OWPN) while InforSense joins the Tripos alliance program as a software partner.

Using a model that has worked well for the company in the past, Accelrys announced late last year the formation of its Acclerys NanoBiology Initiative, which aims to accelerate the company’s development of software tools related to nanotechnology in the areas of biological research, diagnostics, biosensing, drug deleivery and biomaterial design.

A new combination of automated nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tools offers research chemists new methods for understanding and evaluating the compounds they create.

Creating new ways to look at small things – single molecules – could add up to big business for Agilent Technologies. The company intends to expand its nanomeasurement market share through its November acquisition of Tempe, Ariz.-based Molecular Imaging Corp., which develops and manufactures atomic force microscopes (AFMs). AFM applications for drug discovery include screening compounds for drug affinities and watching molecules in live cells. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

NimbleGen Systems Inc. recently announced the closing of a private venture financing round in the amount of $8.2 million, an effort led by Cargill Ventures of Minneapolis, Minn., and Skyline Ventures of Palo Alto, Calif. That brings NimbleGen—a provider of flexible high-density microarray products and services for genetic analysis—to a total of $50 million raised since its founding in 1999.

Discovery Partners International (DPI) recently announced that discussions between it and Pfizer over a potential new collaboration had terminated, and that it will be reducing staff and consolidating operations as a result. The talks had been aimed at forging a new agreement to replace DPI’s previous long-standing collaboration with Pfizer, which expired on January 5 and which had brought DPI $92 million in revenues between 2002 and 2005, including $2.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2005. Pfizer could not be reached for comment on why they ended the talks, but DPI’s recently appointed acting CEO, Dr. Michael C. Venuti, speculates that his company was simply outbid by firms outside of the United States—probably in China, India or Eastern Europe.

Late last year, SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development organization, launched its new Center of Excellence in Computational Biology, which aims to conduct collaborative research in symbolic systems biology, synthetic biology and bioinformatics to advance knowledge of biological systems and accelerate drug discovery and development.