Feb. 8 — Eagle Genomics and Cycle Computing today announced that they have jointly won a competitive bid by the Pistoia Alliance to support the development of a proof-of-concept (PoC) system to meet the future needs of pharmaceutical R&D IT. A four-month project, the Eagle Genomics & Cycle Computing proof-of-concept system is one of three accepted proposals out of a field of eleven total RFP submissions. A commercial release of the Sequencing Analysis Platform is expected by mid-2012.

The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit, pre-competitive alliance of life science companies, vendors, publishers, and academic groups, with a vision for the future of managing and sharing pre-competitive pharmaceutical genomics R&D data, has created detailed requirements under the banner of Sequence Services Phase 2. The system, with a number of add-ons for analyzing this data through the use of standard bioinformatics tools and custom workflows, must ensure that each customer using it is completely confident that their data will remain private and confidential.

Building on Cycle Computing's extensive experience in securing and scaling large-data applications in the cloud, combined with Eagle Genomic's enviable track record in delivering bioinformatics applications and workflows to 8 out of 10 top global pharmaceutical companies, the joint Eagle/Cycle project is on track to be a robust, scalable, and highly adaptable solution that meets the vast majority of current Pistoia member needs, plus many of their future ones.

David Flanders, CEO of Eagle Genomics, said "The Pistoia Alliance's vision in recognizing the significance of disruptive technologies and associated new business models presents a superb showcase for the talents of Cycle Computing and Eagle Genomics to provide open innovation solutions to customers in the pharmaceutical sector – and beyond."

"Cycle is committed to supporting the standards that help spark innovation, unify silos and streamline data digestion," said Jason Stowe, CEO of Cycle Computing. "We look forward to collaborating with the alliance members and with the talent of Eagle Genomics in bioinformatics and Cycle Computing in Cloud HPC workflow management, meet the challenges facing both researchers today and into the next generation."

The proof-of-concept system for the Sequencing Analysis Platform will be delivered and demonstrated at the annual Pistoia Alliance Conference, to be held in March 2012 in Boston, Mass. The award carries 25% of an overall $200K allocated by Pistoia.

About Eagle Genomics

Eagle Genomics is an outsourced bioinformatics services and software company specializing in genome content management and the provision of open-source solutions. Cambridge, UK, based, Eagle delivers quality and value-for-money for customers across the life science and related sectors, combining cloud and NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) expertise with a track record in building scalable, efficient genomics analysis workflows. Our Elastic Eagle flagship product offers total flexibility and a fully integrated working relationship. Seamlessly combining commercial and open source software, training is provided along with delivery of our solutions so our clients become experts in using and managing their own bioinformatics tools.

About Cycle Computing

Cycle Computing is the leader in Utility Supercomputing software. As a bootstrapped, profitable software company, Cycle delivers proven, secure and flexible high performance computing (HPC) and data solutions since 2005. Cycle helps clients maximize existing infrastructure and speed computations on servers, VMs, and on-demand in the cloud. Our products help clients maximize internal infrastructure and increase power as research demands, like the 10000-core cluster for Genentech and the 30000+ core cluster for a Top 5 Pharma that were covered in Wired, The Register, BusinessWeek, Bio-IT World, and Forbes. Starting with three initial Fortune 100 clients, Cycle has grown to deploy proven implementations at Fortune 500s, SMBs and government and academic institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Purdue University, Pfizer and Lockheed Martin.

The Pistoia Alliance

Since 2009, the Pistoia Alliance has worked to lower barriers to innovation by improving the interoperability of R&D business processes. Alliance members include over 50 life science companies, vendors, and publishers.

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Source: Eagle Genomics; Cycle Computing