| Chemaxon | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Cheminformatics |
| Founded: | in Budapest, Hungary |
| Founder: | Péter & Ferenc Csizmadia |
| Hq Location City: | Budapest |
| Hq Location Country: | Hungary |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Num Employees: | 250 (2022) |
| Parent: | Certara, Inc. |
Chemaxon is a cheminformatics and bioinformatics software development company,[1] [2] headquartered in Budapest with 250 employees.[3] The company also has offices in Cambridge, San Diego, Basel and Prague,[4] [5] [6] and distributors in China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia.[7] [8] [9]
On July 9, 2024, it was reported that the company would be acquired by Certara.[10] On October 2, it was announced that the transaction had been completed.[11]
Chemaxon was founded in 1998 by two brothers, Ferenc and Péter-Csizmadia.[12] The company name is a combination of the roots chem, as in chemistry, and axon, referring to a vast network of connections between the scientific and informatics domains. Initially, Chemaxon offered consultancy services and later moved into product development. Chemaxon had strong ties with local universities engaged in software development projects with PhD students. The first Chemaxon software product was Marvin, a chemical editor whose first version was released in January 1999. Marvin was followed by the development of the JChem technology, adding chemical intelligence to common database management systems. It was first released in early 2000.[13] Chemaxon's first software developments were presented in scientific articles and posters presented in cheminformatics journals and conferences.[14] [15] Company revenue and user number increased rapidly in the early 2000s, which resulted in the first user meeting in 2005.[16]
In 2004, Chemaxon began to offer a free software license package.[17] Chemaxon also established representatives in the US from 2000 and in Japan via an official distributor company in 2005. Growing user requests led to the development and release of more software products. The company's product portfolio expanded with physical and chemical calculations and predictions, desktop-based chemical database management applications, and chemical naming intelligence. The growing trend affected employee numbers and required a larger head office space.
The first official office headquarters was opened in 2003 in Máramaros köz, Budapest, Hungary. A software development office opened in Prague in 2006. Chemaxon's desktop-based, cheminformatics product portfolio saturated in the late 2000s. GlaxoSmithKline contracted with them in late 2009.[18] The company started to experiment with agile software development approach in 2010, eventually adopting scrum methodology in the following year.
Chemaxon makes use of cross-functional teams in its office environments.[19]
Chemaxon started to build its cloud-based software systems in 2008, the first being Chemicalize. The rise of biologics within newly developed pharmaceutical drugs influenced Chemaxon to start developing its biopolymer informatics portfolio in 2015. In 2011, Chemaxon moved its office headquarters to Graphisoft Park, one of Budapest's tech hubs. In 2014, a United States East Coast headquarters opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, followed by an office opening in San Diego in 2018.
Chemaxon Products include tools for visualization and drawing of molecules, chemical database searching and management, and for drug discovery. Products are licensed free of charge for academic use.[20]
Chemaxon’s desktop applications include Marvin, a free chemistry software for drawing and visualizing chemical structures, and Instant JChem, a desktop application for end user scientists; JChem for Excel which integrates the structure handling capabilities of JChem and Marvin within a Microsoft Excel environment.[21]
The software can be used to predict pKa values[22] and logP values.[23]
The company developed Markush structure storage and search capabilities (without enumeration), with Markush structures from Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index (DWPISM) database.[24]
Pearson Education uses Chemaxon's JChem, MarvinSketch, and MarvinView as the chemistry tools in many Pearson MasteringChemistry courses.[25]
Molecule characterization data in the form of a simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES) string can be uploaded into the Marvin software.