Free, Downloadable Version Offers Life Science Users Immediate Access to Data and Insights
BOSTON--Understanding that real-time access to open data drives innovation, Ceiba has introduced the Community Edition of its Helium Data Workbench. This free, downloadable version of Helium provides more than 50 analytical functions to bring public life science data directly into Microsoft Excel, TIBCO Spotfire and the Helium Windows 8 app. The open source nature of the software allows the easy addition of new plug-ins to data services and applications. Users can share recommendations for new connections with others in the Helium community.
Ceiba's newest collaborative partner for the Community Edition is the Open PHACTS consortium, which integrates pharmacological data from a variety of information resources.
“Open PHACTS is committed to building an open, sustainable data infrastructure to support drug discovery research,” said Gerhard Ecker, academic coordinator of Open PHACTS. “The Open PHACTS application programming interface provides a development platform for a responsive analytical, visual and predictive tool such as Helium.”
In addition to Open PHACTS, the Community Edition includes connections to other chemistry and pharmacology data services, including ChEBI, KEGG,PubChem, and ChEMBL. The Community Edition also leverages Ceiba's strong partnership with Microsoft, with the Helium server component hosted on Windows Azure.
“Extending the reach of our Helium Data Workbench by way of the Community Edition reinforces our dedication to the life science industry – making data accessible and helping drive innovation across the industry,” said Warren Casey, CEO of Ceiba. “Our integration with Excel, our Windows 8 app, and Helium's use of Azure are proof of our continued work with Microsoft to bring mobility to the lab and help life sciences move to Windows 8 as XP fades out.”
Helium’s open architecture enables users to tap into a wide range of data services and applications beyond the pre-existing scientific connections, and utilize them directly in their favorite software. Helium was recently awarded the Microsoft Life Science Innovation Award for a major pharmaceutical company’s use of Helium for sales and marketing analytics. Helium was honored particularly for its unique data-typing mechanism that identifies selected data and recommends meaningful use of related data across disparate sources, driving innovative thinking around previously unrealized connections.
For example, Helium's interoperability with Veeva, a life sciences customer relationship management system, together with multi-channel marketing data from sources like Lyris and medical professional prescription information, can enable users to more easily identify how to maximize resources to drive sales. With data more easily exposed and no longer constrained within siloed sources, users can focus their time reviewing and analyzing information to make more insightful and faster decisions.
The research-focused Helium Community Edition for Excel and Spotfire, along with the Helium Windows 8 app, are available for immediate download. A version of the Community Edition for sales and customer relationship management is forthcoming.
About Ceiba
Ceiba Solutions provides managed services, products and information analytics dedicated to helping the Life Sciences maximize the value of information. As the only company focused on providing high quality, onsite IT support inside the modern laboratory, its managed services offerings are uniquely positioned to help researchers maintain focus on the business of science and decision making. Ceiba’s powerful analytics and services platforms provide easy to use self-service analytics and social monitoring services designed to help customers tap the potential of the Big Data age. Ceiba's customers include major pharmaceutical companies and world-renowned research institutions.