Basel, 2002/05/22

Genedata, a global leader in developing and marketing computational data analysis systems for high-throughput drug discovery, today announced the release of their new software suite Genedata Screener for the analysis of high-throughput screening (HTS) data. The suite is a modular and scaleable software solution that improves the understanding of biological activity of compounds. Genedata Screener significantly enhances the quality of hits in drug screening as well as analysis throughput, ultimately improving the efficiency of the drug discovery process and thus reducing development costs significantly.

Genedata's approach towards screening data analysis goes beyond the "one screen yields one hit list" paradigm. It is unique in combining early and consistent quality assessment with cross-assay data analysis and large scale compound profiling, making use of all available information simultaneously. Genedata Screener has been developed and validated in close collaboration with several HTS departments from leading pharmaceutical companies. It is a comprehensive system for the analysis of large-scale HTS data and supports the complete drug screening process.

As the first of a series of components the Screener AssayAnalyzer module provides rapid preprocessing and quality assurance of complete screening assays with millions of measurements each. It is unique in its capabilities to simultaneously visualize thousands of microtiter plates and to automatically detect, tag or eliminate low-quality screening data. It separates true biological signals from experimental noise, controls the signal homogeneity within an assay, identifies possible experimental artifacts and generates high quality data for further downstream processing. Version 1.0 of the Screener AssayAnalyzer module also contains sophisticated built-in algorithms to normalize and correct systematic deviations on a high-throughput scale. It estimates hit rates and shows the distribution of active compounds on wells, plates, runs and the entire assay.

The additional modules to be released within the next few months are Screener Condenser 1.0, designed to perform data standardization, and Screener Analyst 1.0, developed for compound profiling using multivariate statistical analysis methods. The Genedata Screener suite extends Genedata's software and services portfolio for high-throughput biology and draws on the company's leading scientific and computational expertise and knowledge of discovery processes in the life science industry.