| Type | Public (NASDAQ: SMMX) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Life Sciences; Chemical and Energy and Performance; Materials and Consumer Products |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, CA USA |
| Key people | Isy Goldwasser, CEO Steven D. Goldby, Executive Chairman Rex S. Jackson, Executive Vice President and General Counsel W. Henry Weinberg Ph.D., Executive Vice President and CTO |
| Products | Electronic lab notebook and R&D execution and analysis software, lab automation and breakthrough materials technology |
| Employees | 400 |
| Website | www.symyx.com |
Symyx Technologies NASDAQ: SMMX is a pioneer in the area of combinatorial chemistry applied to heterogeneous catalysis and homogeneous catalysis, polymer formulations, electronic and magnetic materials.
Symyx offers high-speed combinatorial technologies for the discovery of new materials. Using proprietary technologies - including instruments, software and methods - enabled Symyx to generate hundreds to thousands of unique materials at a time and screen those materials rapidly and automatically for desired properties. This approach can deliver results hundreds to thousands of times faster than traditional research methods, at a fraction of the cost.[1]
Symyx is applying this technology to revolutionize materials discovery in the life sciences, chemical, and electronics industries. Founded in 1994 by Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni and Dr. Peter G. Schultz, Symyx' conceptual basis draws from Affymax, Inc. and Affymetrix, Inc., which commercialized the use of high-speed combinatorial methods for pharmaceutical and genetic research, respectively.[2] Symyx screens about a million materials a year and has produced a product pipeline with several materials that have the potential to be commercialized in the next few years. Examples of their discovery efforts include X-ray storage phosphors for radiography, polymers to speed DNA research and catalysts for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, chemicals and plastics.
In 2007 Symyx Technologies acquired MDL Information Systems, a provider of R&D informatics in the life sciences and chemicals industries, which was launched as a computer-aided drug design firm (originally named Molecular Design Limited, Inc.) in January 1978 in Hayward, CA. With this purchase came purveyorship of the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTEC), a database of the toxic health effects of more than 100,000 chemicals commonly used in US industry. In 2008, Symyx sold the OHS business of MDL to ChemADVISOR, Inc., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Recent innovations include an enterprise electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) capable of supporting multiple scientific disciplines.[3]
In 2010 Symyx merged with Accelrys, with the combined company being known as Accelrys.[4][5]