REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., April 23,
1996-Oracle Corp. today joined MDL Information Systems in the
official launch of the company's new pharmaceutical and
biotechnology application written in Power Objects, Oracle's
object-oriented visual development tool for cross platform
client/server development. The application, MDL SCREEN is a new
High Throughput Screening (HTS) system designed to manage and
track large volumes of chemical and biological screening
information used for the discovery of new medications and
treatments within the pharmaceutical industry. "Because of
the new business opportunity presented by HTS, time to market was
of extreme importance to us in building MDL SCREEN," said
Douglas McArthur, chief architect on the SCREEN project at MDL.
"With Oracle Power Objects we were able to build a complex 40-form application with reporting options and Oracle7 stored procedure calls in just four months and offer our customers the SCREEN solution for deployment in either a Windows or Macintosh environment." "Oracle and MDL's mutual customers require the scalability, reliability and security of Oracle (R) Universal Server (R), the world's first all-purpose server, to help manage their mission-critical, medical research data," said Marc Benioff, senior vice president of Oracle's Web/Workgroup Systems Division. "Oracle Power Objects delivers the tightest integration with Oracle Universal Server and visual object orientation allowing sophisticated applications to be developed quickly." HTS uses computers and robotics to speed the testing of biological compounds, bringing industrial-scale automation to the painstaking process of discovering new drugs. Maximizing on the productivity features delivered with Power Objects, MDL offers the first complete, cross-platform client/server solution for managing HTS. MDL SCREEN is an Oracle-based, client/server information management system which supports every stage of the HTS process, from experimental design and protocol management, to data validation and decision support.
"High throughput screening is essential to Signal Pharmaceuticals' product development strategy, and MDL SCREEN enables us to smoothly implement this technology," said Dr. Mark Goldman, director of drug discovery and pharmacology at Signal Pharmaceuticals. "We have worked closely with MDL and are impressed with their ability to incorporate the new features we requested and quickly produce a stable product.
The Oracle Power Objects platform has contributed to the speedy development of the system. We believe Oracle's technology will help MDL keep pace with our fast changing requirements." Established in 1978, MDL Information Systems, Inc. is the leading commercial supplier of chemical information management software, chemical information databases and related services to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and chemical industries. The company's software and database products enable its customers to discover and develop new products more rapidly by allowing scientists to access and use scientific information more effectively. MDL has offices worldwide with headquarters in San Leandro, Calif.
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