The daunting task of integrating, analyzing, and clearly presenting volumes of information that span several databases is a major challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. To address this problem, Iconix Pharmaceuticals developed DrugMatrix, a single-source database of insights collected from across multiple data domains using the disciplines of chemistry and genomics. DrugMatrix is built on a three-tiered architecture consisting of a data warehouse, an application server, and a sophisticated Web UI created using TIBCO General Interface, an AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) toolkit for Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

Iconix developed the DrugMatrix database to deliver the company’s chemogenomics database as effectively as possible to its customers. In building this solution, Iconix knew it would need to couple high-performance information processing capabilities with an interactive, feature-rich GUI that would allow researchers to conduct iterative searches and interact with the information displayed on their PC screens.

Considered one of the most capable web developer technologies available, AJAX today enables search engines and other consumer applications to significantly enrich the user experience for people surfing the net. Iconix leveraged AJAX, embedded in a RIA framework, to build its real-time data DrugMatrix application to look, feel, and perform like desktop software. Further, an AJAX approach helped Iconix bring the product to market twice as fast and decrease the development costs by two-thirds compared to building a standard client/server architecture.

In the process of developing DrugMatrix, Iconix explored the possibility of in-house developed technologies and vendor-provided solutions. Iconix rejected all vendor solutions except for a mature RIA offering from TIBCO Software, called TIBCO General Interface, because the others tended to offer JSP or HTML-based solutions—albeit with some modifications—that were not a significant improvement over what it had initially considered.

Iconix believes that the benefits AJAX offers are not unique to the development environment at Iconix. AJAX enables robust functionality and similar benefits to any enterprise developing an application in an RIA framework. AJAX makes it possible to deploy highly functional browser-based applications without the disruption or costs typical of developing and rolling out thick client desktop applications.

Iconix makes the vast body of information contained in its chemogenomics DrugMatrix database available to its customers—leading pharmaceutical companies that rely on effective new drug development, including Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories.

DrugMatrix integrates publicly available drug literature with extensive amounts of experimental data generated by Iconix research laboratories. To date, Iconix has tested more than 900 drugs in its laboratories, characterizing each drug’s activities in a panel of 130 bioassays. Even more compelling for pharmaceutical customers is the data that DrugMatrix provides in the area of gene expression, a newly emerging discipline that uses microarray technology to measure the level of gene expression for large numbers of genes. Iconix has run 12,000 microarrays—each of which measures gene expression for about 10,000 genes—to generate 120 million data points in the DrugMatrix database for gene expression alone.

DrugMatrix’s intuitive, high-productivity GUI meets the information requirements of pharmaceutical companies in an easy-to-use, highly interactive web application that functions like a traditional thick client. The development team at Iconix was interested not only in creating a GUI that could consolidate a wide variety of drug-related information but also in providing numerous views of that data. In addition, the team was committed to developing an application that transcended the page and document basis of typical Web pages and didn’t cost an arm and a leg to build and maintain overtime.

Specifically, the use of AJAX technology in the development of DrugMatrix has allowed Iconix to:

• Integrate more than 200 million complex drug data points in a visually rich, interactive interface
• Deliver DrugMatrix to market twice as fast and reduce development costs by two-thirds when compared to standard client server architecture
• Leverage GUI technology to differentiate its offerings from competitors

On the customer side, Iconix’s use of a standard web browser saves companies the costs of deploying and maintaining a desktop software application.

The Iconix team expected that an AJAX-enabled RIA solution would hasten its development of DrugMatrix, and they were right, as the following example illustrates:

In a scientific research house like Iconix, there is a continual need for new or modified tools. One of its biggest challenges—and a significant source of cost—is to quickly develop usable specifications for new products.

Prior to using an RIA framework-based approach to the Internet Development Environment (IDE), Iconix would create feature specifications in a paint program and submit them to a product development committee. The process typically consumed three to four weeks, with the effort of creating the visuals taking the greatest amount of time.

Currently, Iconix developers can generate or change feature specifications on the fly, often in the midst of a development committee meeting. These working specifications are 80 percent complete and require very little further refinement, which decreases development time.

IV. Methodology/Process

V. Technology

VI. Project Team