Sigma-Aldrich Acquires ChemNavigator, Inc., to Provide Researchers With Industry-Leading Chemical Compound Selection and Procuremen...( ST. LOUIS Aug. 6 /-...)

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma-Aldrich(R) (Nasdaq: SIAL) today announced the acquisition of cheminformatics company, ChemNavigator(R).com, Incorporated, a provider of leading discovery research informatics software tools used for design, selection and procurement of chemical compound libraries. The acquisition links ChemNavigator's (www.chemnavigator.com) comprehensive suite of virtual screening and selection tools and industry-leading searchable database of over 60 million compounds with Sigma-Aldrich's (www.sigma-aldrich.com) core strengths in chemical compound management, procurement and global distribution to accelerate discovery research programs.

Early in the drug discovery process, researchers work at the molecular level to perform structure activity relationship (SAR) studies, seeking molecular patterns that may exhibit enhanced biological activity against disease targets. This virtual discovery process typically leads to a selection of compounds that can be compiled into target libraries based upon the identified SARs and molecular designs. Target compounds must then be identified from among the millions of potentially available chemicals and procured for actual testing of their biological properties.

ChemNavigator provides medicinal, computational and synthetic chemists with a comprehensive set of virtual screening tools and products that allows them to channel their chemical designs toward sets of commercially available compounds. The company's powerful sourcing database, the iResearch Library(TM), contains millions of chemical products available for sel
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