SciFinder reaching more researchers at top pharmaceutical companies

As represented in the Top 50 list published by Pharmaceutical Executive magazine this year. Within this group a growing number of companies are extending SciFinder access to all their researchers to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

SciFinder continues to be a dominant presence within the leading companies. A growing number of these are now providing SciFinder not only to chemists, for whom it has long been a popular tool, but also to researchers throughout the company in a variety of disciplines. This demonstrates growing CAS leadership in the pharmaceutical information sector. SciFinder is truly ‘part of the process’ for drug discovery.

SciFinder gives scientists easy access to CAS databases containing the most comprehensive collection of relevant records for scientific literature, patents, substances and reactions . The principal CAS literature database is CAplusSM, which integrates chemistry-related literature and patents records and now contains more than 24 million records extending back to the nineteenth century, even before the beginning of CA.

The CAS RegistrySM database is the world’s largest collection of substance information, containing records for 29 million organic and inorganic chemicals and millions of sequences (nucleic acids and proteins). CAS Registry records include the substance’s molecular structure diagram, systematic chemical name, synonyms, molecular formula, and other identifying information along with a unique CAS Registry Numberâ assigned by the Registry system. These concise identifiers serve as a link to the fully indexed CA document records and have become standard identifiers that avoid the ambiguity of chemical nomenclature. CAS Registry has been growing at the rate of more than 7,000 substance records each working day.

Pharmaceutical companies must give scientists throughout the company optimal tools for interdisciplinary research. SciFinder lets them explore CAS’ broad range of database content plus MEDLINE, which ideally suits the needs of researchers in different groups that span chemistry, medicine, toxicology, biotechnology and other fields essential to the pharmaceutical enterprise. Because of its breadth, SciFinder can address all phases of the discovery process.

For example, topics such as clinical studies reporting drug efficacy, toxicity, interactions and unexpected drug effect are covered by CAS. For the lead optimization phase of drug discovery, SciFinder offers the ability to search for articles describing the bioavailability of approved drugs or investigative substances. The effects of naturally occurring biochemical substances, such as enzymes and protein targets, are also covered in the databases made accessible through SciFinder.

SciFinder was created in 1995 with the vision of providing scientists easy, point-and-click access to chemical information. The new intelligent research tool for the desktop was an immediate hit with scientists, assisting them and other researchers worldwide with access to the multidisciplinary CAS databases.

Today, scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies around the world use SciFinder each working day to explore CAS databases for research topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on recent scientific developments. Many have said they can no longer imagine doing their work without using SciFinder--truly "part of the process" in many fields of research.