ACD/Labs Improves the Support of Virtual Screening with Increased Speed of Calculation in Version 8.0

Toronto, Canada, February 12, 2004 -

Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) extends the application of its industry standard PhysChem prediction software by significantly increasing the speed of property calculation in version 8.0.

ACD/PhysChem provides the industry's most accurate prediction of critical drug-related properties, including logP, pK_a, aqueous solubility, logD, and polar surface area. ACD/PhysChem Batch applies these leading algorithms to large databases with tens of thousands of compounds at a time, allowing the rapid and automatic screening of compound libraries to filter out compounds that will not meet the criteria of potential drug candidates.

Developments in version 8.0 of ACD/PhysChem Batch have led to property calculation speeds up to ten times faster than in the preceding version for pK_a, logP, logD, solubility, and all four properties combined. Version 8.0 makes it possible to predict the entire range of required physicochemical properties for hundreds of compounds each minute, and provides the accuracy necessary to filter compounds across numerous classes, thus leading to enriched screening sets for further stages of drug discovery research.

Robert S. DeWitte, Ph.D., Director of Medicinal Chemistry Solutions for ACD/Labs, comments, "We are very pleased with this first step of progress toward ultra-high throughput physical property prediction without compromising our renowned standards of accuracy and quality. With this in hand, computational chemists will be more able to focus downstream screening applications on pharmaceutically viable molecules, producing high quality hits. We are motivated by enabling our customers to avoid the enormous potential costs of trying to optimize 'red-herring' compounds. With higher compute speed and accuracy, these cost savings can begin earlier."

Also new to ACD/PhysChem and PhysChem Batch, version 8.0, is ACD/pK_a Accuracy Extender, which enables the expert chemist to train the system with his own experimental data in order to calculate more accurate pK_a values for novel chemical classes. This program, along with the existing ACD/LogP Accuracy Extender, facilitates the overall increase in prediction accuracy and speed amongst the range of ACD/PhysChem version 8.0 products.

ACD/PhysChem, version 8.0, is estimated to be available for shipping in May 2004.

About Advanced Chemistry Development

Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) is a chemistry software company offering solutions that truly integrate chemical structures with analytical chemistry information to produce ChemAnalytics™. ACD/Labs creates innovative software packages that aid chemical research scientists worldwide with spectroscopic validation of structures, elucidation of unknown substances, chromatographic separation, medicinal chemistry, preformulation of novel drug agents, systematic nomenclature generation, and chemical patenting and publication. Combined, ACD/Labs' solutions create an analytical informatics system that provides dramatic feed-forward effects on the chemical and pharmaceutical research process. Founded in 1993, and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, ACD/Labs employs a team of over 100 dedicated individuals whose continual efforts carry ACD/Labs' innovative technologies into pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, and materials companies throughout the world. Information about Advanced Chemistry Development and its products can be found at www.acdlabs.com.