IBM, Decode go gene hunting

ICELANDIC BIOINFORMATICS COMPANY Decode Genetics and IBM on Thursday announced a three-year deal to jointly sell Decode's gene discovery software.

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Decode's Clinical Genome Miner Discovery system is an application for isolating and analyzing genes and gene variations associated with particular diseases. IBM and Decode will sell the software to pharmaceutical companies and other medical research organizations worldwide starting in mid-2003, the companies said in a joint statement.

Additionally, both IBM of Armonk, N.Y., and Decode of Reykjavik, will offer consulting, implementation and integration services around the joint offering, they said.

Decode's product helps to provide more personalized medical care to patients, Decode said. The aim is to help researchers understand illnesses at the molecular level, including gene variations linked to disease or drug response. This would allow doctors to make more precise diagnoses and tailor treatment decisions, while drug makers can develop more targeted therapies.

The product will be sold with IBM hardware and software. IBM is now Decode's preferred supplier. The offering includes IBM's xSeries and pSeries servers on the hardware side and WebSphere application server, DB2 database and DiscoveryLink data integration technology on the software side, the companies said.