Informatics in Drug Discovery: The evolving information technology market

Within the world of life science research, informatics plays a key role. A few years ago, this market space was occupied primarily by a few niche players, but over the past five years, established companies have expanded their offerings and hundreds of new software companies have surfaced.

In the rapidly changing field of informatics, it is difficult to decode the buzz-words, interpret the extravagant claims, separate true needs from blue-sky wishes. The concerns and strategies of only a year ago are old news. And new suppliers, products, strategies, and markets are now being established.

This study is designed to unravel the complexities of information technology as used in drug discovery. It also looks at information technology from the customers perspective, providing insights from leading pharmas and industry experts.

At one point, the informatics market for drug discovery was divided into two pieces: Cheminformatics and Bioinformatics. Each was served by a different group of suppliers with different products sold to different customers. However, it is getting more difficult to distinguish between software products that are designed for specific areas.

In the future, these distinctions may become irrelevant. For the purposes of this study, Kalorama has divided the market into four major product groups (to provide some shape to a very amorphous market):

• Cheminformatics,
• Bioinformatics,
• In-silico modeling, and
• Hardware and systems.

For each segment, the major issues and challenges are explored and the market size and growth are quantified through 2008. In addition, each chapter includes the estimated market share of the leading suppliers and a list of competing firms.

The report concludes with profiles of 30 suppliers of informatics products and services. Although these companies are a small percentage of all the companies in this market, they were selected to be representative. A balance was sought between very large corporations, very small start-ups, and mid-sized players. Each profile contains location, size, history, priority of their products for drug discovery, and their industry position and future strategic potential. Financial data are either reported (public companies) or estimated (private companies and subsidiaries).