Today, LION Bioscience AG, Heidelberg and Aventis Research & Technologies GmbH & Co KG, Frankfurt (formerly Hoechst Research & Technology), announced a three year licensing agreement on LION's bioinformatics system bioSCOUT®. The system has been installed on
Aventis' server in Frankfurt and is accessible to users at HMR, Hoechst Roussel Vet, Nutrinova, and AgrEvo.

LION's bioSCOUT® system is an integrated bioinformatics platform covering both the complex research needs of bioinformaticians and lab-bench molecular biologists. The functions range from gene sequence annotation up to function prediction and 3D-homology structure modeling. Users have access to the information in a user friendly and compact form which helps them to evaluate gene and genomic sequences with respect to their utility. bioSCOUT® delivers information for "in silico" identification and validation of key and target genes.

"The bioSCOUT® system will play an important role in our future activities in genomics and proteomics", says Dr. Holger Wallmeier, head of Biomathematics at Aventis. "In this respect, collaborating with LION provides us with the capability to successfully enter new areas of biotechnology. Aventis will use the bioSCOUT® system for a variety of its own research projects. In addition, the integrated software / hardware system will also be available to other Hoechst companies, such as HMR, Hoechst Roussel Vet, AgrEvo and Nutrinova via intranet access."

"bioSCOUT® satisfies the informatics needs arising in various application areas of Life Sciences research, encompassing agroscience, medical and veterinary research as well as food sciences. This demonstrates the versatility of our system", explains Dr. Reinhard Schneider, VP Bioinformatics, of LION Bioscience AG.

"For the Hoechst Companies this licensing agreement means a direct and easy access to state-of-the-art methods and 200 GB of current data as well as a chance to plan and steer life science R&D projects more efficiently. We maintain this important infrastructure in collaboration with LION", adds Dr. Wallmeier.

"bioSCOUT® on the intranet can be accessed by users from several different research groups", Dr. Schneider continues. "bioSCOUT®, in its new release 1.3, now provides tools for project management and information sharing. Currently, we are developing new modules which extend the applicability of our Life Science Informatics platform into the world of chemistry and cheminformatics."

Company news release
N2412