NEW YORK, Dec. 3—MDL Information Systems announced Monday that it will provide software and informatics systems for NiKem Research Srl, the medicinal chemistry spinoff of GlaxoSmithKline’s former R&D center in Milan, Italy.
NiKem will use MDL’s applications in all stages of drug discovery research, including reagent selection, assay design and biological data capture, storage and analysis, chemical data searching, and chemical registration.
NiKem Research, which was formed in August 2001 by former SmithKline Beecham scientists, supplies services and products to the pharmaceutical industry. It is currently focused on lead optimization in pre-clinical drug development.
GlaxoSmithKline holds a minority equity stake in the company, and has a two-year contract with NiKem for lead optimization in treatments for neurology and respiratory diseases.
MDL Information Systems, based in San Leandro, Calif., is a subsidiary of Elsevier Science.