Thomson Reuters Acquires GeneGo

Resulting solutions will help biopharma and academic researchers design better drugs

PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, Nov. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Thomson Reuters today announced that it has acquired GeneGo, a leading provider of biology and disease information, analytics, and decision support solutions for pharmaceutical research and development.

Effective immediately, GeneGo will become part of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition enables Thomson Reuters to provide the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic research communities with solutions that provide better understanding of the underlying mechanism of disease and potential therapies. GeneGo’s scientific expertise and assets in biology-driven drug discovery complement the Thomson Reuters life sciences portfolio that covers drug pipeline competitive intelligence, patents, and chemistry.

“Thomson Reuters now provides comprehensive decision support solutions to help researchers striving to bring more effective medications to market,” said Jon Brett-Harris, executive vice president at Thomson Reuters. “There is an increasing need for biology content, detailed disease insights, and analytics to support R&D productivity and to enable a more personalized approach to medicine.”

GeneGo’s capabilities include:

-MetaBase™, a comprehensive and respected knowledge base in systems biology.
-Expertise in analytics, data management, and value-added services.
-An experienced management team and a skilled scientific staff.
-A successful track record deploying decision support systems.

GeneGo is headquartered in San Diego and has offices in Moscow and Michigan.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs 55,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters

PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced that it has acquired Discovery Logic, Inc, a provider of customizable analytics and decision support solutions for scientific research. Effective immediately, the company is part of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition of Discovery Logic will enhance current research analytics offerings and provide increased decision support and workflow solutions to academic, government, non-profit and commercial professionals. Key assets and benefits which Discovery Logic will bring to Healthcare & Science’s Scientific & Scholarly Research group include:

* ScienceWire®, a highly customizable and proprietary software and database platform
* Complementary capabilities in analytics, data management- and value-added services
* Experienced management team with a highly skilled, scientific-oriented staff
* A successful track record of deploying decision support systems

“Combining Discovery Logic software, analytics and data mining capabilities with Thomson Reuters’ global resources will result in extraordinary workflow solutions and services to help our customers improve their outcomes,” said Mike Boswood, President & CEO of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. “It is clear that Discovery Logic’s ScienceWire and analytic service will serve as the foundation for a new technical paradigm that will propel our business forward in the future.”

“There is an increasing global need for analytics on grants, experts and research outcomes,” said Keith MacGregor, Executive Vice President of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters. “Combining superior content, tools and services from Thomson Reuters with the customizable data analytics from Discovery Logic will enable our business to deliver a one-of-a-kind solution for evaluation and outcomes measurement.”

“Both Discovery Logic and Thomson Reuters specialize in transforming information into knowledge,” said Mike Pollard, who will continue with the business as Vice President and General Manager of Discovery Logic after the acquisition. “Together, our companies create an unmatched resource for global professionals needing to make crucial decisions on projects, people and research collaboration opportunities.”

Discovery Logic is a leading provider of systems, data and analytics for real-time portfolio management, decision support, outcomes tracking and information visualization. The company provides a unique software, data and analytics for relating people, organizations, ideas, grants, inventions, patents, publications and products worldwide.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

Cautionary Note Concerning Factors That May Affect Future Results

This news release includes forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions and reflect Thomson Reuters current expectations. Forward-looking statements are those that are not historical facts and include Thomson Reuters expectations about the Discovery Logic acquisition. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations. Some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include risks related to Healthcare & Science’s ability to successfully integrate the Discovery Logic business, and actions of Healthcare & Science’s competitors. Additional factors are discussed in materials that Thomson Reuters from time to time files with, or furnishes to, securities regulatory authorities. Thomson Reuters disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Intel expects sales for the quarter to be roughly $8.8 billion to $9.2 billion.  Thomson Reuters analysts expected Intel’s Q3 revenues to be about $8.55 billion.  Intel themselves were surprised by their revenues because they expected the economic downtown to drastically affect business.

Dell, the second largest PC manufacturing company also expects to have a solid year.  “There are a lot of moving pieces in the PC industry as we prepare for a new operating system from Microsoft,” stated Doug Freedman, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech in an interview with The New York Times.

I applaud Ahearn for embracing blogs.  The barriers to entry for online journalism are decreasing.  And the First Amendment backs them up.  Threatening to sue those that use the words of an Associated Press article may not be the best business strategy according to the Reuters exec.

“Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.”

Ahearn said that a better approach to handling borrowing one another’s content is by giving credit where it is deserved.  When I quote from the Associated Press, I personally link to their articles and report that the AP deserves credit.  Does the AP always give credit back?  No.

Here is a news story about former Facebook application Scrabulous being renamed Wordscraper by the Associated Press.  Who broke the story?  Pulse2.  Who are the ones that gave us credit? Mashable and Ars Technica.  Who didn’t give us credit?  The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.  Treat those how you would like to be treated, Associated Press.

Last year Thomson Reuters filed a lawsuit against Virginia’s George Mason University.  George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media had created a bibliography software called Zotero and Thomson Reuters believed that they violated copyright as a result.  George Mason had supposedly reverse engineered Thomson Reuters’ bibliography software called EndNote.

Zotero has the ability to open files using EndNote and save them as open formats.  Thomson Reuters’ license agreement prohibits software from having that sort of functionality.  Thomson Reuters was asking for $10 million in damages as a result.  A few days ago the lawsuit was dismissed by a Virginia Circuit Court judge.

Zotero works as a Mozilla Firefox plug-in that enabled people to store and organize research.  It has been downloaded over one million times since last September.  George Mason University said that they had no renewed a license for EndNote and will not make any changes to the software.

[via TechDirt]

“We’ve created something completely new here,” stated Devin Wenig of Thomson Reuters. “This is meant for the 550,000 financial professionals who have a Thomson Reuters screen on their desks.”

Thomson Reuters is not creating the service to compete head-on with CNBC or Bloomberg TV, but rather to make their financial services more attractive.  Each video will have a transcript and clicking on a portion of the transcript will automatically fast-forward to that portion of the video.  A number of clients have already signed on for the video service including Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Argus Research.

[via NYT]

“We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too,” stated Josh Cohen on the Google News Blog.

Google was debating whether to put ads on news.google.com for about 6 years.  They were skeptical before because of criticism from newspaper publishers.  Content from Google News is aggregated from various blogs and online newspapers.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reiterated that the search engine company is a friend of newspaper publishers.  Google’s own Adwords and AdSense business depends on newspaper publishers and other content publishers.

“When Eric Schmidt says he worries about the newspaper industry, it’s crocodile tears,” stated Brian Tierney CEO of the parent company for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News.

William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group has a difference of opinion with Tierney.  MediaNews is the parent company of about 54 daily newspapers including the San Jose Mercury NEws and The Denver Post.  He says that newspaper companies don’t have to let Google take content, but opt to do so because it drives traffic.

Reuters says that they will be watching Google News closely as they don’t have any licensing agreement with them.  “We are certainly not surprised by the move, which places Google News in a position to compete with news publishers — giving us cause for concern,” stated Alisa Bowen, SVP for Reuters.

[via New York Times]