Equinox launches world’s first pay per use service (PPU) for bioinformatics software

Leading Phyre fold recognition software heads offering   

London December 13, 2007 - Equinox Pharma Limited today announced the launch of Equinoxppu.com, a new web portal that enables researchers worldwide to access Equinox proprietary bioinformatics software on a ‘pay as you go’ basis.  The first product available will be Equinox’s leading Phyre^TM homology modelling and fold-recognition software. User research has shown that proteomics is an ideal target market with positive feedback from research, biotech and pharma audiences.

PPU strategies have been successfully applied to other software products but this will be the first time that bioinformatics software has been made available in this way. PPU via Equinoxppu.com has a number of advantages over a conventional licensing route:

·         No need to install the software locally

·         The software runs on the secure Equinox server eliminating memory capacity concerns

·         Access to the most up to date version of the software and the latest database

David Gough CEO of Equinox Pharma said “Equinoxppu.com is that rare event - a first in class launch.  We are confident that Equinoxppu.com will be a popular and cost-effective way for users to access our world-leading software.  It also provides a possible route to market for other bioinformatics software developers whom we invite to contact us if they are interested in using Equinoxppu.com to distribute their software.” 

Notes for Editors 

Equinox Pharma Limited

www.equinoxinfomatics.com

Equinox is a spin-out from Imperial College which employs proprietary chemo- and bio- informatics techniques to accelerate and improve drug discovery.  Specifically we have two technology platforms:

(i)                  Logic-based drug discovery utilising advanced machine-learning techniques integrated with more conventional approaches

(ii)                Bioinformatics software focused on protein structure and function which we license to drug researchers in academia and the Pharma and Biotech Industries 

Phyre

Phyre provides tools for homology modelling and fold recognition from a database of all known folds and super families. These techniques are especially powerful at recognising remote structural relationships that cannot be identified by standard sequence-based methods. Predictions can be made starting from no more than a protein amino acid sequence, or a multiple sequence alignment.