Thomson Reuters and ChemAxon Partner to Help Speed Drug Discovery for Life Science Researchers

LONDON and BUDAPEST, Hungary, Jan. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The IP Solutions business of Thomson Reuters®, the leader in intellectual property research and analysis solutions, and ChemAxon, the leader in cheminformatics software for the life sciences industry, today announced a strategic partnership whereby Thomson Reuters is providing its chemical IP Data Feeds – Markush Structures and patent data to users of ChemAxon's JChem chemical software platform. This search and analysis solution will speed drug discovery and allow life science researchers to easily integrate critical content into their existing systems and workflow.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110104/NY24167)

The Markush structures from Thomson Reuters are part of the company's Derwent World Patents Index® (DWPI(SM)) database, the world's most trusted and authoritative source of global patent information. The Markush database contains essential data on the relationship or "families" of 550,000 patents, making it the world's leading source for life sciences patentability research, competitive intelligence and IP screening.  ChemAxon's JChem software allows life science professionals to structure and visualize chemical compounds for property prediction, virtual synthesis, screening and drug design. Through this partnership R&D end users can now research and analyze Markush structures using ChemAxon's JChem chemical software platform, a means they had no access to before.  The ability to quickly retrieve this information will now allow R&D end users to save time and capitalize on R&D investment.

"The ability to search and visualize complex chemical patents is critical to the work of life science R&D professionals. To date, however, this has been a challenge as there wasn't a tool that enabled R&D end users to do this type of work themselves," said Cindy Poulos, vice president of product management, Thomson Reuters. "Through this partnership, Thomson Reuters and ChemAxon are making a comprehensive worldwide database of chemical compounds widely accessible in a user-friendly, flexible format to end users."

"The Markush structures database has become a vital backbone of pharmaceutical research in the digital age," said Alex Drijver, CEO of ChemAxon.  "By delivering this data directly to the end user in an intuitive, flexible format, our clients have access to the functionality and data necessary to stay competitive in today's fast-paced, complex marketplace."

The Thomson Reuters IP Data Feed - Markush Structures database is indexed from 550,000 patent families, plus 1.7 million related, exemplified, specific compounds.  It includes patents for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and general chemistry spanning 26 patent-issuing authorities.  Markush data is integrated with high-quality patent summary data from DWPI, enabling access to enhanced patent abstracts, family and assignee details, and relevant bibliographic data.  For more information, contact Steve Hajkowski, product manager, Thomson Reuters, at [email protected]

About ChemAxon Ltd

ChemAxon is a leader in providing cheminformatics software development platforms and applications for the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. With core capabilities for structure visualization, search and management, property prediction, virtual synthesis, screening and drug design, ChemAxon focuses upon active interaction with users and software portability to create powerful, cost effective cross platform solutions and programming interfaces to power modern cheminformatics and chemical communication.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.  We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs 55,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters