Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. (CDD) announced that its web-based software, which organizes preclinical research data to help scientists advance new drug candidates, has been selected by the Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF) to enable the foundation's sponsored researchers to collaborate more effectively.

MRF's Accelerated Research Collaboration (ARC) model creates a unique partnership between academic researchers, scientific and drug discovery advisors and a centralized management team to define and execute on an integrated research plan that will reduce the time to market for a wide range of patient treatments.

Focused exclusively at this time on identifying myelin repair drug targets that will lead to treatments for multiple sclerosis by 2009, MRF provides the business infrastructure for a team of some 30 scientists, working together virtually, from different university laboratories in the US By following best business practices, working on a common research plan, sharing their findings in real time, and piggybacking experiments that might otherwise have taken years to accomplish, the scientists have been able to considerably accelerate their research.

CDD enables scientists to collaborate easily across institutional and disciplinary boundaries and empowers new cooperative research strategies, such as MRF's innovative ARC model. The database features the ability to share data with a spectrum of permissions-either selectively with just a few specific colleagues, openly with the entire scientific community, or not at all. This flexibility encourages data sharing where appropriate while protecting intellectual property, so promising approaches can be patented and commercialized.

The software excels at capturing and organizing fragmented data that would otherwise remain dispersed across multiple laboratories. Foundations can easily set-up and manage collaborations involving multiple research groups located anywhere in the world and spanning multiple scientific disciplines. The central database maintains research continuity as participants change and ensures continued access to the results of sponsored research. CDD manages all the infrastructure and presents data to researchers through an intuitive web interface; contextually-aware hyperlinks steer scientists where they need to go without requiring them to master complex tools.

"By working together with CDD, we can fully exploit the value of the preclinical research data generated by our sponsored researchers and advance promising new therapies for multiple sclerosis more rapidly into clinical trials," said MRF chief operating officer Rusty Bromley. "CDD's software perfectly complements MRF's Accelerated Research Collaboration model which relies on multiple groups located throughout the country, each focusing on different aspects of the overall research challenge. Each group contributes different types of data to the collaboration depending on its distinct scientific specialty. CDD's software integrates these efforts, so a virtual network of academic laboratories can drive toward developing new therapies with a degree of focus historically unavailable in academic laboratories."

In addition to making its existing capabilities available to all MRF researchers, CDD will extend the software's range to include target validation and customize the interface for MRF's researchers. "We are delighted to enter into this partnership with MRF," said CDD Founder and President Barry Bunin. "MRF has pioneered a research paradigm that organizes diverse academic groups into highly-structured collaborations with a sharp focus on outcomes. CDD's software was designed specifically to encourage and support this type of research model, so we believe our database will significantly accelerate MRF's efforts."

MRF and CDD will also work together to help other disease research organizations realize the full potential of collaborative research. "While MRF is specifically focused on speeding myelin repair discoveries that will lead to treatments for multiple sclerosis, we believe that our ARC model has implications for research more broadly," said Bromley. "Part of our mission is to enable others to reap the benefits of the ARC model for preclinical drug discovery R&D. A successful partnership with CDD will offer proof of concept to others seeking collaboration tools for similar research efforts."

Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. (CDD) provides web-based software that organizes preclinical research data to help scientists advance new drug candidates more effectively. The CDD database enables scientists to "archive, mine, and collaborate" around preclinical chemical and biological drug discovery data through a web-based interface. The software helps distributed research groups to safely store and intelligently analyze small molecule, enzyme, cell and animal bioactivity data accumulated from both low-throughput and high-throughput screens.

Unique collaboration features and CDD's community-oriented approach help unite globally dispersed humanitarian efforts against neglected infectious diseases. Similar collaborative strategies are also rapidly gaining prominence in the commercial arena. CDD offers its industrial-strength database software at a price affordable to academic laboratories, research foundations, and small companies.