Scimagix Unveils Industry's First Dedicated Image Informatics Suite
Innovative Products Accelerate Drug Discovery and Lower R&D Costs
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Sept. 24, 2001--Scimagix(TM) Inc., the pioneer of enterprise class image informatics solutions for pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development (R&D), today announced the Scimagix Application Suite, a set of specialized applications for high throughput analysis and mining of image data. Designed for use in conjunction with the Scimagix SIMS(TM) (Scientific Image Management Solution) infrastructure platform, these modules use advanced visual content search technology to automatically analyze images and to enable searching of images based on selection of an area or a region within the image to find more images with similar characteristics.
Scimagix uniquely offers products that enable researchers to mine all types of images captured in scientific research in a matter of minutes, and to fully utilize the value of image data at every stage of R&D and to tie together related data across the cycle. The shared resources of a scalable, automated database management system for storage, rapid retrieval, and mining of corporate image data is intended to significantly boost the productivity and cost-effectiveness of drug discovery and development -- bringing more pertinent data into view for decision-making. This innovation in image informatics is already providing demonstrable benefits to six of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Global R&D and Eli Lilly & Co., early adopters of the Scimagix system.
"While the abundance of image data generated during pharmaceutical research appears to increase discovery potential, it also takes longer to search, evaluate and interrelate that volume of information," said Debra Goldfarb, group vice president, enterprise systems, IDC. "To significantly shorten discovery cycles, researchers must leverage advanced technology to extract meaningful insight from the images that comprise the majority of R&D data. The convergence of science and technology creates unprecedented opportunities for leaders in emerging markets, such as image informatics, to facilitate advances in proteomics, functional genomics and beyond."
ProteinMine(TM), the first module available in the Scimagix Application Suite, is a high throughput application to analyze, search and mine 2D (two-dimensional) electrophoresis gels, the predominant research tool used for the quantitation and analysis of protein expression. ProteinMine is the first and only image-based method for searching, validating and analyzing protein expression patterns and is intended to advance and accelerate proteomics-based drug discovery.
"Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are under enormous economic pressure to speed up the drug R&D process and to lower costs," said Robert Dunkle, president and CEO of Scimagix. "Companies will be able to quickly review data for decision-making if they can use image informatics to gain site-wide or company-wide access to their data and accelerate the R&D process. We designed the SIMS platform and the Scimagix Application Suite to transform drug R&D by fully integrating high-value image data, along with non-image data, so that researchers can increase insights gained from experimental research. Our customers tell us that Scimagix is already generating a huge productivity boost -- one they anticipate will result in sustainable competitive advantage."
Currently under development are CellMine(TM) and TissueMine(TM), additional components of the Scimagix Application Suite. CellMine is a high throughput application to analyze, quantitate, search and mine images of microscopic cellular activity. CellMine enables researchers to quickly and accurately identify, characterize and search outcomes based on what is seen in the image; for example, anti-mititotic activity can be quantitated and categorized by stage. TissueMine is a high throughput application to analyze, quantitate, search and mine images of tissue from various sources. TissueMine enables researchers to sort images by computed classification and staining intensity to quickly and accurately identify and characterize the effects of compounds on healthy or diseased tissue.
About Scimagix Inc.
Scimagix(TM) Inc., based in Redwood Shores, Calif., is the leading provider of image informatics solutions for pharmaceutical research and development. Its flagship SIMS(TM) (Scientific Image Management System) platform is the first database management system designed to optimize the use of images generated during drug discovery research and development. The Oracle(R)/Web-based software system is an open architecture platform that enables group- to enterprise-wide image management, providing researchers with a comprehensive and searchable database of image data. The Scimagix Application Suite supports high throughput analysis and mining of image data with its proprietary visual content search technology. This innovative technology dramatically increases the accuracy and productivity of R&D processes by enabling users to select and search based on a specific region of an image, to easily retrieve image sets from diverse experiments based on specific search parameters, to identify correlations, and to gain access to expert data across laboratories and the corporation. Scimagix presently serves six of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer Global R&D and Eli Lilly & Co.
For additional information, please visit Scimagix's corporate Web site at www.scimagix.com.