The Pune-based IndoGlobal Knowledge Ventures Pvt Ltd, is developing an integrated chem-informatics suite that will enable R&D labs in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries to establish and maintain improved experiment management systems. The tool is expected to be useful to bench chemists in these industries.

The company's flagship product, Alchemis, is being developed as a fully-integrated, full-featured and configurable experiment management system that enables R&D labs to record, document, collate and analyze readings generated out of experiments and reactions. It will be knowledge management and decision enabler tool for R&D labs.

Vaishali Kedar Gadgil, chief executive officer of IndoGlobal told Pharmabiz, that the company is planning to offer the product in India by early 2008 and further intends to market the product in key overseas markets such as Latin America, Japan, US and China. As of now, the functional prototypes of the product are ready.

There is a keen interest among venture capital companies to invest ventures that relate to R&D in pharmaceuticals and IndoGlobal is actively looking at VC support in the near future, she added.

The company with a strong team comprising chemists, scientists and IT specialists is establishing process knowledge partnerships with pharma, chemical and lab technology companies such as Lupin, Sigma Aldrich and Sartorius, while it is talking to Indian Institute of Chemical Technology and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, both based at Hyderabad, for domain knowledge advisory.

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries globally have realised that R&D laboratories are profit centres and not cost centres. The company aims at empowering R&D labs further, she added.

The company believes records of R&D inventions are the basis of patents and intellectual property worldwide, and in turn, of all modern economic systems. Laboratory records also document details of product manufacturing, for purposes of quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and consumer protection.

IndoGlobal is planning to develop a ready-to-use product for pharma and chemical companies. The significance of data capture and retrieval is growing gradually in these industries. The US FDA has also been emphasising on electronic data management.