Accelrys launches first series of Discovery Studio applications

06-27-2002: San Diego, CA, June 26 2002 Accelrys Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pharmacopeia, Inc., today announced the first suite of Windows®-based bioinformatics and chemistry applications for its Discovery Studio™ platform. Discovery Studio is designed as a fully integrated enterprise platform to help reduce the time and cost involved in the discovery and development of novel drugs, therapies and other biologically active substances. This platform will include wide-ranging informatics capabilities and modeling tools to identify and characterize protein targets and design drugs.

The products made available today are: Discovery Studio Gene (DS Gene) – for viewing, editing, and analyzing DNA and protein sequences; Discovery Studio ViewerPro (DS ViewerPro) – a molecular modeling and visualization tool; and Discovery Studio MedChem Explorer (DS MedChem Explorer) - an industry-leading pharmacophore modeling and design application. These products can be integrated through Discovery Studio Project Knowledge Manager (DS ProjectKM) – an Oracle®- based groupware infrastructure that captures and stores the information and knowledge generated by Discovery Studio applications and facilitates effective re-use across research teams. Over the coming months, additional products and technologies from the Accelrys portfolio will regularly be added to Discovery Studio.

“The introduction of these applications marks the first step towards delivering to our customers a complete enterprise solution that will address the critical innovation and efficiency problems constraining today’s drug discovery process,” said Dr. Michael Stapleton, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Accelrys. “Discovery Studio products will span the entire drug discovery value-chain, linking the efforts of scientists from many different disciplines. Ultimately, our platform will help research organizations bring new drugs to market faster and at a reduced cost.”

Discovery Studio

Discovery Studio is a powerful research platform for the life sciences that integrates a comprehensive suite of informatics, modeling, and simulation solutions and provides access to them on standard desktop personal computers. These tools address specific research problems encountered by scientists working across the whole discovery process. The platform also includes a centralized project and knowledge management system that supports collaboration between and among scientists in various disciplines, for example, connecting research conducted by biologists and chemists. Discovery Studio is an open platform built on industry-standard components, enabling users to leverage existing IT infrastructure and integrate third-party, public domain and other in-house applications.

Discovery Studio Applications

DS Gene – A streamlined desktop tool for accessing, manipulating, and analyzing DNA and protein sequences. DS Gene provides an intuitive and flexible interface for accessing different types of data, including DNA, protein, and 3D molecular representations. The application can be used as a stand-alone sequence analysis system or as a client interface to the wider platform, which will enable integrated access to GCG® Wisconsin Package® and is planned to integrate with SeqStore® through DS ProjectKM.

DS ViewerPro – An easy-to-use molecular visualization application that allows researchers to create and interact with high quality 3D models of chemical structures on standard Windows PCs. DS ViewerPro renders sophisticated images that previously were only available through expensive Unix workstations. Graphics are seamlessly transferred to popular productivity applications such as Microsoft® PowerPoint® or Word® to enhance scientific reports and help communicate results.

DS MedChem Explorer – Enables chemists to design active compounds for prescreening synthesis candidates faster using an in silico approach. It provides enterprise-wide access to pharmacophore modeling, conformation analysis, property calculation, ADME prediction, and more. Molecular modelers can use this tool to share their models with chemists in an interactive environment. Connection to DS Project KM allows for communication and data sharing among project members.

DS ProjectKM – The backbone of Discovery Studio’s knowledge-centric system, DS ProjectKM is a groupware infrastructure that integrates applications and enriches collaboration between research team members from biology to late stage lead optimization. It enables users to create and manage experiments, folders, queries, job runs, and associated data. The system utilizes a central Oracle database accessed by Discovery Studio applications as an alternative to storing information in files. DS ProjectKM provides access to project and experimental data though a project navigator that allows users to store, access, retrieve, and share data stored in the project database. The DS ProjectKM system allows data to be directly accessed and shared between project team members, work groups, and software applications. Utilizing common data formats, DS ProjectKM enables integration of informatics, modeling and simulation, desktop productivity tools, and the corporate IT infrastructure. The database centric environment facilitates the management of scientist projects and experiments and facilitates inter-departmental collaboration within life sciences research and development.