Imagine thousands of scientists across the globe collaborating to find a cure for cancer or create a new malaria vaccine. A new software application from pharmaceutical company could make this scenario possible, reports Digital Beat.
The software, called ChemBioConnect, is the result of a partnership between pharmaceutical company Pfizer, collaboration innovator Imaginatik, and life sciences software provider CambridgeSoft. ChemBioConnect is a relative of CambridgeSoft’s ChemBioDraw, a graphing tool for biologists and chemists. Scientists at Pfizer can draw up diagrams in the software and send them to other scientists around the world using Imaginatik’s “crowdsourcing” technology. ChemBioConnect is similar to Symyx Draw by Symyx Corporation, although the latter does not use crowdsourcing.
Additional features of ChemBioConnect include the ability to translate documents into foreign languages, the ability to find collaborators based on their personality traits, and organization of data into threads for evaluation. Imaginatik Founder and CEO Mark Turrell believes that the software will eventually be used in other industries, such as food science and avionics. Imaginatik plans to charge $50,000 to $500,000 per year for the use of ChemBioConnect.