Washington, DC — Allotrope Foundation has announced release of the first production version of its flagship Allotrope Framework — an advanced data architecture that facilitates creation, use and exchange of laboratory data by standardizing data representation across proprietary equipment and software — to Foundation and partner network members.
Allotrope Foundation is an international consortium of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies with a common vision to develop innovative new approaches for handling data in R&D, with an initial focus on analytical chemistry. The Allotrope Framework is designed to enable cross-platform data transfer, facilitate data sharing, and vastly increase ease-of-use, giving rise to a new generation of software applications built to leverage any data from any analytical instrument. This effort is fully funded by the members of Allotrope Foundation, and the Foundation reports that it is “rapidly progressing on common goals to reduce wasted effort, improve data integrity and realize the full value of analytical data.”
The September internal release package includes
- version 1.0 of the Allotrope Data Format (ADF)
- application programming interfaces (APIs)
- Allotrope Foundation taxonomies (AFTs)
It was designed for Allotrope Foundation by OSTHUS, an information management and technology services firm.
Development of the Allotrope Framework is an ongoing project. In addition to the V1.0 elements of the ADF, APIs and AFTs, the framework’s design includes a comprehensive Metadata Repository built on the taxonomies and a more complete range of API functionality in the form of Class Libraries. The generally available release of the full Framework is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2016.
Realizing the vision
Members of Allotrope Foundation, in collaboration with members of the Allotrope Partner Network, have already begun to implement software solutions that integrate the framework into their laboratory workflows and enable adoption of the Allotrope Data Format — an HDF5-based, platform independent file format that is the cornerstone of the Allotrope Framework, which enables software to access any data from any analytical instrument regardless of manufacturer or software version.
The Allotrope Partner Network is a platform for Allotrope Foundation’s collaboration with the vendor community and members of academia. Members have access to technical training materials, pre-release software, comprehensive educational tools, and access to the business requirements and subject matter experts from Allotrope Foundation. The network offers a place to collaborate, exchange ideas, provide feedback and obtain the tools and information needed to support the framework in software, hardware and services.
A standard platform at BMS
“The progress on the Allotrope Framework to date has shown significant promise in developing the tools that provide a standard file format and terminology for describing the data and workflow of the analytical laboratory in the software used to generate and analyze that data,” said Dr. Dana Vanderwall, Associate Director, Cheminformatics at Bristol-Myers Squibb. “We have initiated a project to develop a standard platform for the planning, execution, analysis and reporting of analytical chemistry across Discovery Research at Bristol-Myers Squibb that will reduce the friction in the process of using data for decision making and insight, by leveraging the Allotrope Framework as a fundamental part of the infrastructure.”
GSK integration project
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will implement the Allotrope Framework for use in drug substance release and stability testing in research and development (R&D) as a first step toward wider integration into multiple workflows across its R&D and manufacturing environments. The Allotrope Framework and Data Format will be key enablers to drive automation and enhancement of data quality, compliance and integrity. GSK’s integration project encompasses the entire data lifecycle, including
- sample receipt
- analysis
- review
- approval
- long-term preservation
“Every decision we make about our products is based on data. To deliver safe and efficacious medicines to the patient, we must be confident in the quality and integrity of our data. Our integration project with Allotrope Foundation will deliver standard metadata and data stored in a standard format, addressing the root cause of our data challenges and revolutionizing the way we generate, access and use data to make decisions and deliver our pipeline of medicines,” said Dr. Annette Doherty, GSK Senior Vice President, Product Development & Supply.
Conclusion
As more pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies begin to participate in the collaborative model and adopt the ADF’s data standardization, use of controlled vocabularies and “software toolkit” to standardize data representation, Allotrope Foundation believes the usable and easily accessible R&D data generated by the framework will be a tremendous help in eliminating inefficiencies and much of the friction of collaborative efforts by the company’s researchers and their partner organizations.
For further information, visit: http://www.allotrope.org/
