LONDON and CAMBRIDGE, MA -- 10/15/08 --
InforSense Ltd., the
leading provider of next generation business and scientific intelligence
tools, today announced it has successfully completed a pilot project at
world leading pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to enable
virtual drug discovery through virtual outsourcing of data analysis via
secure Grid technology. The project is sponsored by SIMDAT -- a program
funded by the European Commission under the Information Society
Technologies Programme (IST) designed to test and enhance Grid data
technology for product development and production process design.
"Pharmaceutical companies are moving away from the fortress mentality,
which has been prevalent for many years, towards an ecosystem of companies
working together without geographical or technical boundaries," said Rob
Gill, Head of Biology Domain Architecture at GSK. "SIMDAT has enabled us to
test out all the components we need to support the virtual outsourcing of
data analysis in a secure environment. The combination of NEC Internet
security models, InforSense workflows, GRIA service-oriented infrastructure
and data analysis services from BioFocus DPI and Université Libre de
Bruxelles has shown how virtual organizations can become a reality."
In addition to GSK, project partners included NEC Europe Ltd, BioFocus DPI,
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Université Libre de
Bruxelles, IT Innovation and Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and
Scientific Computing (SCAI). The project at GSK involved setting up a
secure Grid enabled environment to support the electronic outsourcing of
data analysis and annotation of biological data to third parties -- thus
enabling virtual outsourcing. The system, which is built using InforSense
workflows, runs across a
test-bed comprising five different remote sites and incorporates data
services from two external companies. This demonstrates how a once fully
internal system of analytical tools and databases for sequence analysis,
annotation and "Drugability" can now be distributed across a number of
organizations. The project delivers a more collaborative approach to drug
discovery, bringing increased flexibility and efficiency to the process,
while still ensuring the data exchange is secure and controlled.
"We are seeing a growing interest in tools and software to support the
technical and business process aspects of virtual organizations," said
Moustafa Ghanem, Director of Research, InforSense. "Companies such as GSK
are looking at outsourcing many aspects of their business and InforSense is
providing them the infrastructure to do so."
About SIMDAT
SIMDAT has received research funding of the European Commission under the
Information Society Technologies Programme (IST), contract number
IST-2004-511438. Maximum Community contribution to project: 11million Euro,
Project start: 1 September 2004, Duration: 48 months, Partners involved:
27. The project is co-ordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI in Sankt
Augustin, Germany.
About GSK
GSK is one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and
healthcare companies -- and is committed to improving the quality of human
life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
About Fraunhofer
Fraunhofer SCAI conducts research in the field of computer simulations for
product and process development, designs and optimizes industrial
applications, and offers calculations on high-performance computers. The
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, umbrella organisation of SCAI, undertakes applied
research of direct use to private and public enterprise.
About EMBL
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory is a basic research institute
funded by public research monies from 20 member states. Research at EMBL is
conducted by approximately 80 independent groups covering the spectrum of
molecular biology. The Laboratory has five units: the main Laboratory in
Heidelberg, and Outstations in Hinxton (the European Bioinformatics
Institute), Grenoble, Hamburg, and Monterotondo near Rome. The cornerstones
of EMBL's mission are: to perform basic research in molecular biology; to
train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; to offer vital
services to scientists in the member states; to develop new instruments and
methods in the life sciences and to actively engage in technology transfer
activities. EMBL's International PhD Programme has a student body of about
170. The Laboratory also sponsors an active Science and Society programme.
About ULB
The Bioinformatics Laboratory of the Université Libre de Bruxelles is
committed to providing bioinformatics trainings and IT infrastructure to
support the research in Molecular Biology/Medicine. The Bioinformatics lab
is also involved in several informatics developments dedicated, in
particular, to ease the access of distributed resources by the end-users.
To strengthen scientific collaborations, the bioinformatics laboratory is a
member of the European Molecular Biology network (EMBnet).
About NEC Europe Ltd
NEC Laboratories Europe's IT Research Division (NLE-IT) in St. Augustin,
Germany, focuses on the area of Parallel and Distributed Computing,
including Grid Technologies and High Performance Computing (HPC) software
technologies and applications. Current Grid activities address future
enterprise service infrastructures and integrated security solutions.
NLE-IT develops technology to enable Service-Oriented Architecture
(SOA)-based business processes, such as enterprise applications, to be
created, managed and deployed on demand. Strategic research areas for
implementing the vision of a global service economy include:
next-generation SOA for
cross-enterprise collaboration and eCommerce, future SOA runtime systems,
Service Level Agreement (SLA) lifecycle management, service quality
assurance, virtualization, and semantic technologies.
About IT Innovation
IT Innovation is an international leader in research in distributed systems
including service oriented and Grid technologies, with deep experience of
information and content management, business processes and workflow,
semantics and security. IT Innovation develops and distributes the GRIA
infrastructure helping business to exploit the potential of Internet
alliances.
About BioFocus DPI
BioFocus DPI aims to expand its partners' drug pipelines by accelerating
the gene-to-candidate discovery process. This is achieved through a
comprehensive discovery platform, which includes target discovery in human
primary cells, focused as well as diverse compound libraries, in vitro and
cell-based screening, structural biology, medicinal chemistry and ADME/PK
services, supported by unique chemogenomic and informatics tools. As the
service division of Galapagos, BioFocus DPI has over 300 employees in four
countries worldwide. For more information visit www.biofocusdpi.com.
About InforSense
InforSense goes beyond traditional business intelligence to provide a
completely integrated suite of agile, visual and predictive intelligence
solutions, enabling organizations to gain business and scientific insights
and optimize their business-critical decision-making processes. Leading
pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer goods, healthcare, financial
services, manufacturing and communications companies around the world rely
on InforSense to quickly, easily deliver intelligence and identify trends
in data. The company is privately held, with European headquarters in
London, UK and North American headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more information visit www.inforsense.com.
InforSense and the InforSense logo are registered trademarks of InforSense
Limited. All rights reserved. All other trademarks mentioned in this
document are the property of their respective owners.
Contact:
Lisa Allocca
Red Javelin Communications, Inc.
978-470-2227
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