Strand Genomics, a global life sciences informatics company, has received funding of $1 million from Technology Development Board (TDB) to develop the enterprise functionalities of Avadis and for its global marketing activities.

The company has also recently launched Avadis 3 with enterprise capabilities. It has also signed a site-wide Avadis 3 license deal with Abgenix, a biopharmaceutical company that develops antibodies. Abgenix would now become the reference customer for Avadis enterprise for Strand.

Currently, Avadis is also gaining acceptance in the Indian market with considerable interest evinced from both academic and commercial sectors. The Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi has purchased Avadis. Strand is also in advanced discussions with some leading institutes in the country for Avadis installation.

Although it is recognised as the best option in data mining techniques, it is also known to be an excellent tool software engineering for micro array gene expression data analysis, according to company officials. The unique feature of Avadis is that it combines scalable analytical algorithms with interactive visualization. The product has the expertise to access, visualize and analyse gene expression data. It also has the ability to seamlessly access and import data from various sources. Besides, it has easy-to-use wizards to import Affymetrix files including GCOS. The wizards are also available to support data from spotted arrays.

Further, the product provides a range of clustering techniques and statistical tests. In addition to the Enterprise edition of Avadis, there are already three editions referred to as Explorer, Prophetic and Pride." With the release of the enterprise edition, Strand can now target a much wider audience," said Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chief Executive Officer, Strand Genomics.