Combination of two distinct Genedata platforms proves valuable for a range of pharma needs

BASEL, Switzerland—Genedata, a leading computational solutions provider, recently initiated what it calls a "major research informatics solution deal" with the global biopharmaceutical company UCB, a Brussels, Belgium-based biopharmaceutical company focused on products in the areas of central nervous system disorders, allergy/respiratory diseases, immune and inflammatory disorders and oncology.

In the deal, UCB researchers in the United Kingdom and Belgium began using the Genedata Phylosopher platform combined with the Genedata Expressionist platform to support their drug discovery efforts in all of their disease areas, using a special module developed by Genedata's Scientific Services Team.

Although a degree of customization was required to tailor the module for UCB's purposes, other Genedata customers could easily choose to go the same route by using the Scientific Services Team, notes Mike Bowyer, GeneData's global key account manager for the United Kingdom.

"Also, those using microarray data analysis systems other than Expressionist who wish to gain the benefits of linking probe data to corporate genomic data that Phylosopher provides, can do so using the services of Genedata's Scientific Services Team," Bowyer says.

"Many research organizations are realizing that they own or have access to vast amounts of data derived from both experiments and public data sources," Bowyer adds. "Building an architecture to link, manage and analyze this data is a major task but is necessary to maximize the output from research work and the data that is generated or is available. Genedata has already done this in some major areas and this linked system of Phylosopher and Expressionist represents a major platform that is available today and eliminates the need for companies to spend much in house development and support time in building a custom in-house system."

From a research standpoint, the combined system provides scientists with the ability to easily annotate the probes used in microarray experiments, Bowyer notes. Probes identified as being significant to an experiment can be linked to all genomic data to which the research organization has access.

At UCB specifically, Expressionist—a modular enterprise system for biomarker discovery—reportedly was chosen by the company to gain maximum value from their microarray data, which, when used with Phylosopher, enables UCB scientists to gain even deeper and more valuable insights into the biology of the systems being explored.

In addition, because Phylosopher—a biological research information platform which provides access to vast corporate and public data inventories—adheres to industry-standard database and client-server technologies, it can be easily developed and adapted further to meet UCB's growing needs.

"Industry standards simplify the task of integrating the platform with our existing bioinformatics resources," says Dr. Phil Scordis, UCB senior group leader, informatics. "Phylosopher will enable us to integrate proprietary data with relevant information from the public domain, and aid the interpretation of our experimental data."

Thomas Hartsch, who handles business development for Phylosopher at Genedata, says a combined solution like this one absolutely meets the needs of the pharmaceutical market in general, and he notes that there will be two new customers for the combined platforms soon. They cannot be named publicly yet, but he notes that one is in the field of systems biology and the other is a biotech firm.