March 12, 2007

Accelrys Inc.
Mark J. Emkjer
President and CEO

How has your company adapted and responded to the changing economic climate in the past five years when so many others companies did not?

Five years ago Accelrys was an amalgamation of different companies with disparate technologies and no standard operating platform.  Our products were propriety point products that didn’t work well with each other, or with solutions from competitors or our customers’ internally developed systems.  We built our vision based on discussions with our customers. They said they wanted open, configurable solutions and an operating platform that allowed them to aggregate scientific data and technology regardless of source. We delivered a scientific operating platform that is open, flexible, and configurable and Accelrys is now entering a renaissance period of scientific innovation. Accelrys is the only company that has domain expertise and market-leading product offerings that span biology, chemistry, materials sciences, and nanotechnology, which enable us to deliver solutions that span the discovery and development continuum.

What is your vision for the future of the life sciences market over the next several years?

I believe there will be further consolidation in the industry.  Our customers are facing tough economic challenges as they try to bring new therapeutics to market safely and effectively. The ability to reuse and integrate vast amounts of data from disparate sources will be critical toward improving productivity and maintaining a competitive edge. We see a future where customers can aggregate, mine, analyze, and reuse their data. Together with our customers, we see a critical role for scientific business intelligence that combines standard data with more complex scientific data such as chemical structures, biological sequences, and complex images.

What products and services does your company provide and what special capabilities do they offer the life sciences market?

Accelrys offers a scientific operating platform that enables integration of scientific applications and data.  This open, plug-and-play environment offers vendor neutrality, stimulates innovation and gives customers the ability to select and integrate the best of all available solutions. Accelrys’ heritage is in modeling, simulation, and informatics software and services, and we intend to continue being the market leader.  Further, we are investing in becoming the market leader for scientific business intelligence.  In essence, we are providing data aggregation, mining, analytical tools, protocols, etc. to enable our customers to extract value from the many disparate sources of data which exist.  This endeavor will extend our reach over the entire continuum of the discovery and development process.  In addition, new functionality in the area of image analysis will enable users to process, analyze, and manipulate images from a wide variety of sources.  Our professional services group offers unique domain-specific expertise to enable customer solutions that are deeply scientific.

Partnerships are an effective way to track life science advances and ensure that your company delivers timely products and services. Which life sciences companies or organizations have you partnered with or invested in and why?

Accelrys partnerships include scientific collaborations with over 75 leading academic institutions worldwide that allow us to access cutting-edge science. Thought leaders like Dr. Robert Langer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dr. Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology help lead our NanoBiology Initiative.  In a spirit of “co-opetition” we partner with over 30 independent software vendors, including companies like Spotfire and Tripos, to deliver vendor agnostic solutions to our customers. We have a program where our 150+ PhD scientists on staff may take a sabbatical to drive new internal scientific collaborations and development.

What are your most exciting products and initiatives in development, and how will they improve life science research?

Our advanced technology programs in the areas of nanotechnology will assess and develop IT solutions that address critical challenges of nanotechnology-enabled pharmaceutical and diagnostic design.  The continuing evolution of our scientific operating platform and the development of advanced technologies for scientific data mining and text and image analysis will improve life science research by allowing our customers to leverage their existing data and turn that data into the knowledge needed to make more informed decisions and improve productivity.  This will help enable new opportunities in translational medicine, pharmacovigilance, pharmacogenomics, and personalized medicine.

Where do you see your company in five years?

Accelrys will become a leading provider of scientific innovation and business intelligence solutions that span the continuum of discovery and development, delivering tremendous value to our customers and helping them to innovate and reach new levels of productivity.