Elsevier, the information analytics business specialising in science and health, has announced that it is donating its Unified Data Model (UDM) to The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D. The UDM is an XML file format originally developed by Elsevier to improve the upload of external data sets into its tools. It will now be developed and extended under the stewardship of The Pistoia Alliance, with the ultimate aim of publishing an open and freely available format for the storage and exchange of drug discovery data. The UDM will become a common model allowing data to be easily shared and integrated between parties. This will greatly accelerate drug discovery research and overcome a shared barrier to collaboration.
A lack of well-defined data definitions hampers research efforts and collaboration initiatives, within and between organisations. The complexity of integrating data between horizontal systems (e.g., in-house Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)) and vertical systems (e.g., ELN used by a CRO or academic partner), also significantly adds to the cost of research projects. The Pistoia Alliance’s UDM steering committee, which includes Elsevier representatives, will address these issues by creating open data standards for experimental information about compound synthesis and biological testing. Currently, converting this type of reaction data for a single data source can take considerable time.
In 2013, Elsevier co-developed the UDM with Roche, which was integrating proprietary reaction information in Reaxys, Elsevier’s premier chemistry database. The UDM is based on a well-documented domain model which would provide a minimum information model for the implemented experiment types. No single organisation can create an industry standard by itself; the UDM model can instead be used a ‘starting point’ for informatics systems that are developed by both life sciences companies and software vendors, providing a standard platform for implementing experimental business rules and protocols.
The Pistoia Alliance, supported by Elsevier, will publish the first version of the extended UDM in Q1 2018. The Pistoia Alliance will then further develop the model in response to members’ feedback.
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