Pharmaceutical Business review

Franz, IO Informatics Partner To Deliver AllegroGraph-Sentient Framework

The AllegroGraph-Sentient framework allows users to integrate, analyse and use complex data at a fraction of the cost and time typically required. This reduces the cost and lag-time associated with traditional datamarts and data warehouses. AllegroGraph provides a scalable storage component for RDF-semantic triples and IO Informatics Sentient provides application layer and user interface, for a broad range of users.

Pfizer IDEA (Information Dissemination Extraction and Aggregation) pilot represents the unique benefits that can be achieved by using the AllegroGraph-Sentient framework. The IDEA system, which serves as an example of using a semantic application in the pharma industry, is used to integrate data for compound purity verification and drug product stability analysis.

For the IDEA system, IO and Franz converted several Pfizer datasets to RDF and then used the Sentient interface and SPARQL queries to find datasets. The IDEA project was originally expected to take four to six months to produce results, but by using the AllegroGraph-Sentient framework, it was completed in only six weeks.

Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz, said: Our partnership with IO Informatics is a leap forward for semantic application development in the life sciences and healthcare industries.

The success of the pilot project at Pfizer validates the impact this partnership can have on the entire industry. By combining our technologies, we have created a commercial-grade application framework that enables development of large-scale Semantic Web applications with more flexibly than the traditional data warehouse approach.

Robert Stanley, president and CEO of IO Informatics, said: This is a key milestone in moving Semantic technology application development into prime time. This integration allows companies to quickly develop ‘fit for purpose’ applications. We are pleased to be working with Franz, who will help us propel semantic application development forward.