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ACD/Labs Blog

Andrew Anderson and Graham McGibbon sat down with Jack Rudd, senior editor at Technology Networks, to discuss the issue of data heterogeneity as well as some of the other challenges associated with modern labs and businesses. While there seems to be a general appreciation of the problems related to Big Data, it has become clear that the complications caused by data heterogeneity—or the different types and/or compositions of data—are often overlooked.

We welcomed Mark Meyers to ACD/Labs as our new vice president of global sales earlier this year. We’re ecstatic to welcome Mark to our executive team as our company continues to evolve and bring innovative software solutions to our clientele around the world. In his role, Mark will be responsible for leading ACD/Labs’ sales initiatives while overseeing the sales, technical, and services teams.

In an effort to help separations scientists succeed in 2017, we decided to launch a webinar series aimed at informing the scientific community about how software can assist and improve method development strategies. Hosted by members of the ACD/Labs’ technical and scientific services team—Anne Marie Smith, Brent G. Pautler, and Karim Kassam—the webinar series consists of three 30-minute sessions on a variety of topics relating to method development.

We still find it a thrill when we bump into someone who says “ACD/Labs…are you the ones who make ChemSketch?”, and they then go on to regale us with a story about when/where they were using the software. As one of the most basic software requirements for scientists—a tool that helps them document and communicate their science in chemical structures—ACD/ChemSketch is often one of the first pieces of software they will use in their career, which means there is often nostalgia attached to its use.

From Pfizer to ACD/Labs, then PepsiCo and back to ACD/Labs, Andrew Anderson’s extensive work experience across different positions and fields makes him a great resource for career advice. Following part one and part two of our “5 Questions with Andrew Anderson” series, he shared a number of tips he has picked up during his time in the pharma, software and food & beverage industries.

If you’ve had the pleasure to meet Andrew Anderson, you would know that he’s quite passionate about his work at ACD/Labs. When I sat down with him earlier this month, he had a lot to say about innovation within both the industry and our company. In part one of our two part series, Andrew shared how his previous role at PepsiCo has influenced his work at ACD/labs. He also discussed what’s different about the company since his return late last year. Now, in the second part of our conversation, Andrew shares his thoughts on ACD/Labs’ greatest contributions as well as where he predicts—or hopes—the company and industry will be in the next five years. Enjoy!

Towards the end of 2015, Andrew Anderson rejoined ACD/Labs after an almost decade long hiatus to pursue roles at PepsiCo and Symyx. Upon his return, Andrew took the time to tell us a bit about his experience away from ACD/Labs and why he decided to come back.

The R&D industry has been evolving for decades to make the process of discovering new compounds and formulations in the laboratory easier and more effective. Today, innovative trends, focused predominantly around data and technology, encourage changes that aim to improve efficiencies across the industry. A couple of current trends we’re observing include open innovation (or externalization), as well as big data.

At ACD/Labs, we have spent two decades working with customer organizations to support effective analytical data management. While we are privy to the problems of our customers, we wondered how the wider R&D community has been addressing analytical data management and what challenges remained. With that in mind, we decided to conduct a survey last year to gather feedback from scientists (62% of survey respondents), managers, directors, and executives (26%), as well as IT and other professionals (12%) to better understand the R&D landscape.

Over the course of the last four months, we have been working with Scientific Computing to publish a series of articles on a subject that we feel very passionately about (and work very close with) at ACD/Labs – the externalization of scientific research and development (read the summary here). Essentially, we used this opportunity to address some key trends specific to this topic from various perspectives in the industry. Now that the series is complete, I wanted to give you an overview of the four articles to paint a broader picture of what we, and some of our customers and partners, are seeing today.