Pfizer picks pathway partner

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced last monthan agreement with information solutions provider Ingenuity Systems toimplement an integrated and large-scale research pathway solution. Themulti-year, strategic partnership will promote enterprise-widedeployment of Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA), Ingenuity's all-in-onesoftware application for life science researchers.

In addition, Pfizer will integrate IPA and content from the Ingenuityknowledge base with other informatics solutions used throughout thePfizer organization. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The partnership will enable more researchers to use IPA for theexploration, interpretation and analysis of life science information,says Giles Day, senior director of Pfizer's Targets and MechanismsInformatics Group.

"Through IPA, our internal scientists can access quality information tomodel and analyze complex biological and chemical systems andeffectively share the information seamlessly across the organization,"comments Day in a statement released by Pfizer.

IPA's search capabilities provide users with access to knowledgeavailable on genes, drugs, chemicals, protein families, cellular anddisease processes, and signaling and metabolic pathways. IPA supportsanalysis of data from all experimental platforms and is used at allstages of the drug discovery and development process.

As a long-term strategic technology partner with Pfizer, Ingenuity wasuniquely positioned to help support Pfizer's knowledge managementinitiative, says Ingenuity Marketing Director Heidi Bullock.

"Through IPA, Pfizer researchers were already using Ingenuity'sknowledge base and other tools to search and analyze biological andchemical information," Bullock says. "To maximize the value of theseassets, Pfizer integrated IPA with internal tools across the globalorganization to provide a universal representation system for allPfizer knowledge and to enable more seamless access and collaborationfor research teams."

IPA will be deployed on an enterprise-wide scale across all of Pfizer'ssites globally and integrated with Pfizer's internal tools throughIngenuity application programming interfaces (APIs), Bullock explains.

"By implementing this type of framework, scientists in drug discoverycan make better and faster decisions about targets, mechanisms andindications, and make better predictions about compound efficacy andsafety," Bullock says. "Ideally, there should be a new level ofsimplicity and improved communications by ensuring research teams areusing the same knowledge platform."