MEDINA Scientists Select Genedata Screener for Lead Discovery from Natural Products

Spanish public-private foundation for life sciences research adopts the Genedata Screener 7.0 data management platform for High Throughput and High Content Screening

December 9, 2009
Basel, Switzerland and Granada, Spain

Genedata, a leading provider of advanced software solutions for drug discovery and life science research, and Fundación MEDINA (Centro de Excelencia en Investigación de Medicamentos Innovadores en Andalucía), today announced their collaboration in the discovery of innovative medical compounds to fight infectious diseases, cancer and immune disorders. MEDINA has licensed the Genedata Screener^® platform—including the modules Condoseo for dose-response curve fitting and Kinetics Analyzer for the capture of time series data—for rapid and flexible data processing, management and analysis for all of their natural product screening and lead evaluation services. Those services span a wide range of assay technologies and instrumentation, from single-plate measurements to large-scale screens.

Fundación MEDINA has emerged from the Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) Basic Research Center in Madrid and houses comprehensive microbial collections and natural products libraries as well as a compound profiling platform for the identification of potential risks in cardiovascular safety and drug-drug interactions. Consequently, the MEDINA research teams need to master a multitude of screening technologies and set-up modifications on a daily basis, from anti-infective or biochemical inhibition assays to dose-response assay panels for the determination of potential compound risks.

“We received a clear vote from our users to go with Genedata,” said Francisco Asensio, IT manager at Fundacion MEDINA. “The Genedata Screener system is unrivaled when it comes to the flexible and efficient integration of third-party infrastructure, and the easy templating for our complex assay setups impresses our screening teams just as much as it smoothes things out for our IT support people. As we inherited a large and disparate instrument park and built our entire organization from scratch, the need to align different technologies and research groups was a top priority.”

“We are proud of our relationship with MEDINA,” said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. “Genedata Screener is an exceptional product thanks to its ability to master the breadth and complexity of today’s screening scenarios. Introducing this product to the thriving Spanish life science market and establishing our presence there is an exciting challenge for Genedata. We are looking forward to a dynamic partnership with Fundación MEDINA and growing our business in Spain.”

About Fundación MEDINA
Created in November 2008, Fundación MEDINA (Centro de Excelencia en Investigación de Medicamentos Innovadores en Andalucía) is a non-profit public-private partnership between Merck Sharp and Dohme de Espana S.A. (MSD), the Junta de Andalucia and the University of Granada, Spain. MEDINA focuses on 1) the discovery of innovative compounds from microbial natural products to be licensed as new leads for development by industrial companies, and 2) ADME/TOX high throughput screening platform service for the evaluation of drug candidates.
www.medinaandalucia.es