Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Developing scientifi c business
applications using open source
search and visualisation technologies
Nick Brown and Ed Holbrook
Abstract:
In addition to increased scientifi c informatics demands
from high-throughput and more complex scientifi c applications,
solutions are being developed in pharmaceutical companies that
focus on business needs. In AstraZeneca, our New Opportunities
unit focuses on disease indications of unmet patient need, outside of
existing therapy areas. Over the past few years, systems have been
developed using commercial and open source technologies, where
many of these systems leverage a foundation layer - a publication
index, based on SOLR. Systems such as automatic Key opinion
leaders (KOL) identifi cation, drug repositioning and an atlas-of-
science can analyse and combine disparate data with other sources
to aid decision making in our business.
Key words:
SOLR; New Opportunities; search; tagging; visualisation.
14.1 A changing attitude
Over the course of the past decade, there has been an evolution in the
landscape of IT systems in pharmaceutical companies. Our scientists
would have state-of-the-art solutions at work, whereas at home, only for
the technically gifted. Nowadays with information technology becoming
integrated into everyone's daily lives, with sites like Google, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and Ebay, and tools like iPad, Sky+, TiVo and Kindle,
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