After testing its data mining technology in collaborations with research partners for over a year, Molecular Mining has launched its first commercial software product.
The company said it has begun installing its GeneLinker Gold gene expression analysis software at a number of sites in Japan and North America.
GeneLinker Gold enables data filtering and transformation, sorting and clustering, and classification and prioritization of genes along with a suite of visualization tools. It is the entry-level offering in a proposed line of gene expression analysis solutions that will also include GeneLinker Platinum and GeneLinker Diamond. While GeneLinker Gold uses publicly available clustering algorithms, Platinum and Diamond will offer proprietary technology, the company said.
Molecular Mining declined to disclose a release date for the Platinum and Diamond software products.
Don Van Dyke, vice president of sales and marketing at Molecular Mining, said the company’s market research indicated that the gene expression marketplace is the fastest growing market in laboratory science. He said the decision to release the entry-level product first was based on the conclusion that “many users of gene expression methods are just beginning to use the technology this year.”
Molecular Mining is offering the product as a lower-cost alternative to other commercial gene expression analysis software packages. Van Dyke said that GeneLinker Gold’s list price of $5,000 comes in well below comparable expression analysis packages that can run as high as $25,000 to $30,000.
In addition, the company expects users of GeneLinker Gold to upgrade to the Platinum and Diamond versions as they become available.
Despite the steadily growing number of software vendors adding gene expression analysis tools to their offerings, Van Dyke is confident in Molecular Mining’s ability to compete.
“Competition is not a problem,” said Van Dyke. “No matter what you’re selling you’d like to be in a dynamically growing market instead of one that’s stagnant.”
— BT