Overview

NetGenics builds information technology solutions enabling researchers to extract information from life science data in the development of new drugs, gene therapies and agricultural products. The company’s lead product is its DiscoveryCenter, a software environment that provides an integrated view of chemical and biological information from both internal and external repositories. DiscoveryCenter uses IBM’s DiscoveryLink technology to support complex queries. DiscoveryCenter operates either as a component-based architecture or as an ASP for small and medium-sized companies.

It was announced in January 2002 that LION Bioscience AG was acquiring NetGenics Inc. in a stock deal for approximately 1.12 million LION shares that were valued at $17.6 million. The deal was expected to close during the first quarter of 2002 and NetGenics would become a wholly owned subsidiary of LION.

In addition to DiscoveryCenter, NetGenics’ also produces ChemSymphony Pro, a tool for building chemical databases and other applications.

Partners

Avalon Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., has a license to use DiscoveryCenter to enhance its ability to integrate genomics, cytogenetics and chemistry data to build its genomics drug discovery platform.

Paradigm Genetics Inc., of Raleigh, N.C., will use its multi-seat DiscoveryCenter license to increase the power of its FunctionFinder bioinformatics system to identify and assess targets.

NetGenics, with LabBook Inc., has joined IBM, of Armonk, N.Y. and other organizations to support the BSML (Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language) standard for communicating genomic information (content and visualization).

It also has a collaboration with Schering AG, of Berlin, and other companies.