BioWisdom announces two new agreements
Under the terms of the first agreement, BioWisdom will have exclusive rights to provide access to the MEROPS-PRO database to its commercial users. Academic users will still be able to gain access to the database through MEROPS.
In addition, BioWisdom will provide a value-added hosting, integration and alignment service where the MEROPS database will be accessible alongside both public and other proprietary databases. The services are designed to provide context and visualization, within an e-commerce environment, with enhanced visibility to potential buyers and alternative distribution channels.
"The MEROPS database is already highly valued by pharmaceutical industry and academic scientists around the world," said Gordon Smith Baxter, CEO of BioWisdom and founder of Pharagene. "We are delighted that we now have the opportunity to help increase the user-base of this resource and represent them through our R&D service."
BioWisdom's first product offering is a Discovery Portfolio, due for launch in April 2001. The program is a customizable R&D information service designed to provide an interface to an integrated view of many of the public databases currently available, together with proprietary data from the company's partners.
"We are delighted that the MEROPS-PRO database is to be made available through the BioWisdom site," said Alan Barrett, Manager of MEROPS. "Proteases are implicated in countless aspects of biology and medicine, and the detailed treatment of them in MEROPS-PRO stands to be enhanced by the presentation of our database within the broader context of the Discovery Portfolio."
Under the terms of its agreement with Proteom, BioWisdom will gain the rights to grant evaluation licences, on Proteom's behalf, online via its Web site. Proteom's proprietary technology is designed to identify and design complementary peptides that could have an important role in the protein-protein interactions of interest to drug discovery researchers.
The complimentary peptide data for a large number of proteins will be integrated with other public and proprietary data through BioWisdom's Discovery Portfolio tool kit. The system is designed to provide drug researchers with an interface to a system, which can manage and track changes in information related to the users portfolio of drug targets and interests. In addition, the system is designed to enable the user to track only those elements of a target that are of interest, for example DNA, mRNA and protein; select the underlying data sources that will be used to populate such a portfolio; and choose from multiple methods of visualization.
"Proteom has exciting technology, which is capable of generating information that could have a major impact across the board in Life Sciences research and development," said Gordon Smith Baxter. " We are delighted that Proteom has chosen us as a strategic partner and we look forward to aligning their offering with the interests of our pharmaceutical industry users."