Elsevier Acquires Ariadne Genomics

By Bio-IT World Staff 

December 8, 2011 | Elsevier, the Dutch publishing giant, has acquired Ariadne Genomics, a software provider of pathway analysis tools and semantic technologies for life science researchers, based in Rockville, MD.   

“Ariadne Genomics’ pathway analysis tools and semantic technologies integrate research findings from across multiple content sources providing a deeper understanding of biological pathways and disease progression,” commented Alexander van Boetzelaer, managing director of Elsevier Corporate Markets. “Ariadne’s products improve research productivity and outcomes for life science researchers by delivering new insights for potential interventions, therapies and cures.”   

The Ariadne acquisition delivers “an information offering in the biology domain and a passionate and dedicated team of life science professionals,” van Boetzelaer continued. “Ariadne’s team and offerings are a powerful complement to our chemistry, pre-clinical and clinical workflow solutions.”  

Ariadne’s CEO, Ilya Mazo, said he looked forward “to strengthening our ability to serve biological researchers in scientific communities through further development of Pathway Studio, fortified with Elsevier’s content, and complementing Elsevier’s leadership role across biomedical disciplines.”   

Founded in 2002, Ariadne’s flagship product is Pathway Studio, a widely used suite of software tools used by pharmaceutical, agriculture and academic institutions to study molecular pathways and disease progression. Pathway Studio is an integrated data mining and visualization solution that organizes relevant facts and relationships from large document collections of genes, proteins, cell processes and diseases. The tool enables visualization of biological relationships spanning biomedical literature and supports the interpretation of experimental results utilizing domain-specific ontologies, taxonomies and dictionaries.  

Jonathan Usuka, director of global business planning at Celgene and a customer of both companies, said he was excited by the news. “Pathway Studio provides essential support to our immunological studies. As part of Elsevier, there is the potential to deliver even more value to our researchers.”  

Ariadne will be integrated with Elsevier’s Corporate Markets division. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.