Contur Software, a provider of electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) systems, has added chemistry functionality in iLabber, the company’s high-end ELN system available as an online service. Using a software as a service (SaaS) model, Contur Software is making iLabber available to individual researchers and smaller R&D organizations that previously have not been able to utilize the advantages of high-end ELN systems due to investments in hardware, licenses and maintenance.

The added functionality gives premium users of iLabber access to chemistry drawing, chemical structure and reaction searching, stoichiometric calculations (reaction planning), and iLabber’s inbuilt reagent and reactant databases. All chemistry searching in iLabber is powered by ChemAxon’s JChem Cartridge. In addition, ChemAxon’s MarvinSketch is provided to premium users at no extra cost.

“Because ChemAxon technology is well suited for the web the JChem Cartridge is a perfect fit for iLabber,” said Alex Drijver, CEO at ChemAxon. “We see extensive possibilities for SaaS in cheminformatics and are happy to be involved in this pioneering project.”

To use iLabber, users download a desktop client. Operation, maintenance and data storage is securely managed by Contur Software. The service is available to individual researchers and smaller research groups (recommended up to 15 users). Individual researchers use iLabber for free, while there is a fee of 60 USD per month and user for commercial organizations. Academic institutions pay only half of that fee.

“To smaller research groups with no IT support it is neither economical nor practical to purchase and maintain an in-house database system to gain access to an ELN and all these chemistry tools,” said Martin Wattin, CEO at Contur Software. “The advantages of a web-based, yet high-end, ELN solution are indisputable and we have received compelling feedback from users.”

Release Date: June 17, 2009
Source: Contur Software