Ceiba Launches Free Helium Analytical Workbench

By Bio-IT World Staff 

 

August 5, 2013 | Ceiba has introduced a free version of its Helium Data Workbench that offers more than 50 analytical functions to bring public life science data directly into Microsoft Excel, TIBCO Spotfire and the Helium Windows 8 app.

 

Helium is a self-service data browsing, exploration, and analysis tool that plugs into popular user tools such as Excel and Spotfire.  Helium's data-typing mechanism identifies selected data and recommends meaningful data relationships across sources. The Community Edition 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, in a press release. “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 in a statement. 

 

“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. 

 

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.