Genedata Announces AstraZeneca Standardizes on Genedata Screener as its Global Screening Platform

New five-year license agreement extends AstraZeneca-Genedata partnership; Genedata Screener now AstraZeneca’s corporate platform for expediting drug discovery

November 20, 2015
Basel, Switzerland

Genedata, a leading provider of advanced software solutions for drug discovery and life science research, today announced it has signed a five-year license agreement with AstraZeneca (LON:AZN). The agreement will make Genedata Screener^® the cornerstone for all screening activities in search of novel small-molecule drugs at the new AstraZeneca MRC UK Centre for Lead Discovery and other AstraZeneca sites worldwide. Genedata Screener, already used globally by AstraZeneca, routinely handles full-library screens of one to two million chemical structures as well as all follow-up screening activities in lead identification and optimization. Working in partnership, new applications such as DMPK screening, compound combination screening, screening by mass spectrometry, and support for external collaborations have been developed. With this partnership, AstraZeneca joins the growing number of leading pharma companies and CROs worldwide that are using Genedata Screener for all screening activities in early-stage drug discovery.

Genedata Screener Increases Productivity While Lowering Costs
“We believe that Genedata Screener is the gold standard for screening data analysis,” said Steve Rees, vice president of Screening Sciences and Sample Management at AstraZeneca. “It simplifies data analysis, automates processing, and makes complex technologies and experiments accessible to all scientists. During our initial Screener deployment, we recorded quantifiable increases in productivity,” continued Rees. “For example, the number of results posted to our data warehouse more than doubled, indicating that we could capture results from many more experiments, while the cost of running day-to-day operations decreased. Screener truly enables collaboration by making results comparable and data analysis comprehensible—across projects, geographies, and therapeutic areas.”

The adoption of Genedata Screener at the AstraZeneca MRC UK Centre for Drug Discovery is part of a transformative technology initiative announced by AstraZeneca, which also brings together advanced robotics for compound management and high throughput screening. Supporting AstraZeneca collaborations with global partners, CROs, and academic institutions, Genedata Screener manages all types of screening data during the life cycle of a research project and uniquely imports data from any screening instrument. The platform is used for all screening activities by AstraZeneca Discovery Sciences including specialized departments such as Biophysical Screening, High Content Biology, DMPK, and Safety Screening.

With robust screening analysis capabilities that support a wide range of workflows and technologies, Genedata Screener—out of the box—addresses confidentiality, security, and chain-of-custody policies. The platform also enables:

• Generation of screening results, according to AstraZeneca business rules, for the global organization as well as external partners.
• Easy sharing and comprehension of results, including original data, both for standard and complex screening technologies such as High Content Screening and Surface Plasmon Resonance.
• Defined access to results in restricted spaces with project-specific authorizations.

“We are very proud of our relationship with AstraZeneca and of the innovations in early-stage R&D that result from our collaboration,” noted Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. “This expanded agreement with AstraZeneca validates the strength of our partnership and underscores our shared vision and commitment to advancing research integrity and making drug discovery more efficient.”