Increasing Adoption of Computational Biology Tools in Drug Discovery
Industry

LONDON, August 29, 2005 In a move aimed at augmenting shrinking
product pipelines, the drug discovery industry is employing high-
level computational biology tools. The industry also expects to
reduce the duration of the drug discovery process, especially in
toxicology and drug efficacy studies.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (www.biotech.frost.com), World
Computational Biology Markets, reveals that revenues in these
markets totalled USD 60.0 million in 2004 and can reach USD 751.8
million in 2011.

An increase in royalty and milestone payment agreements is
strengthening strategic partnerships between computational biology
tools vendors and drug discovery companies This, in turn, is
nurturing the faster adoption of these tools in drug discovery.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) pronouncement of in-
silico biology (model-based drug development) as an important step
in improving drug development knowledge management and decision
making, has provided further support to this adoption. Besides using
it, FDA scientists are also collaborating with others in the
refinement of quantitative clinical trial modelling using simulation
software to improve trial design and predict outcomes.

The advent of HTS and ultra HTS (uHTS) has created a huge number of
drug candidates increasing the need for the drug discovery for
computational tools to investigate ADME/TOX properties at a very
early stage to arrive at decision of which of drug candidates can be
pushed into clinical trials stage.

"Use of computational biology tools eliminates false leads at the
early stages of drug discovery," says Frost & Sullivan Industry
Analyst Raghavendra Chitta. "This helps cut down costs since the
later stages are more expensive and time-consuming."

Nevertheless, adoption of these tools is still in its initial stage.
As pharmaceutical companies that have invested heavily in
computational tools after the Human Genome Project are yet to see
any tangible returns, there exists a natural scepticism about their
efficacy.

Therefore, computational biology companies have to quantify their
productivity increments through wet lab experiments to substantiate
their claims. The need of the hour for computational biology
companies is to generate success stories by working on in-house
compounds and taking them to their commercial phase.

For the increased uptake of computational biology tools it is
essential to have qualified software developers trained in biology,
chemistry, and the specific methods of modelling and simulation
needed to interpret data to improve the research process. Many
countries are setting up new academic programs tailored to meet this
specific demand.

Companies also have to be prepared to deal with the technical
inertia among biologists who consider it very difficult to implement
the complex biological system using a series of differential
equations and prefer instead to use traditional methods.

"Computational biology works by integrating data from various
sources to model a biological process," says Chitta. "Although
genomics has generated a huge deluge of information, it has also
created a new problem of varying data formats incompatible with each
other."

The increasing transfer of knowledge from the academic to commercial
sector and the drive toward data standardization through the systems
approach are likely to solve these challenges.

After the series of consolidation, which took place in the
pharmaceutical industry, these companies are looking for a single
large technological platform that can satisfy a multitude of their
research needs. Computational biology companies need to pattern
themselves to meet these requirements in order to utilize this
opportunity.

World Computational Biology Markets is part of the Drug Discovery
subscription. It evaluates pathway modelling tools, tissue modelling
tools, cellular modelling, and disease modelling tools. Analyst
interviews are available to the press.

If you are interested in an analysis, which provides manufacturers,
end users, and other industry participants with an overview,
summary, advantages and disadvantages of World Computational Biology
Markets (F351) - then send an e-mail to Katja Feick - Corporate
Communications at with the following information: your full name,
company name, title, telephone number, e-mail address, city, state
and country. We will send you the information via e-mail upon
receipt of the above information. katja.feick@frost.com

Background

Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been
partnering with clients to support the development of innovative
strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise
integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services and
corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities.
Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global
1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community, by
providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique
global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets,
technologies, econometrics, and demographics.

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