Nonlinear Dynamics, GenoLogics team up

VICTORIA, British Columbia—After several months of discussions, GenoLogics Life Sciences Software Inc., based here, and Nonlinear Dynamics of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, have entered into a global partnership agreement that will result in an integrated protein informatics software solution.

During talks "it became apparent that our products were complementary. Their modules marry well with our proteomics LIMS system," says James DeGreef, vice president-product management for GenoLogics.

DeGreef says he believes the marketplace "will be receptive to a combined product," which the companies plan to launch collaboratively.

Nonlinear's ProMST software is used for 2D gel-based sample and experimental data entry, mining stored analysis results and linking MS-based protein identities to 2D gel-based data. GenoLogics' product, ProteusLIMS, is a proteomics-based laboratory information management system.

"We recognized their gel software was the best on the market," DeGreef explains, "and our LIMS software was dynamic." Together, he says, they have built a platform that meets the needs of those involved in the proteomics field.

Michael Ball, chief executive officer for GenoLogics, says even before beginning talks, each company was being asked by its customers if their products integrated with one another.

Aimed at companies, government agencies and hospitals involved in proteomics, the potential for this category is "growing tremendously," Balls says, and offering one software source for researchers will assist in this growth.

While representatives of Nonlinear did not respond to interview requests by press time, Group Chief Executive Officer Will Dracup, in a prepared statement, said: "By working together, Nonlinear and GenoLogics can both bring our areas of expertise to the table to fasttrack effective solutions to market.

"We already have a number of third parties looking at our joint development pipeline and as such are very confident that the effects of this collaboration will have a major impact within the proteomics laboratory over the coming years."

Ball says the partnership with Nonlinear is GenoLogics' "first significant partnership on the software side." The company already has a hardware partnership with IBM, he notes.