Pfizer Taps Linguamatics for Knowledge Discovery
April 16, 2008
The US pharmaceutical giant has licensed the low-profile Linguamatics I2E Version 3.x technology for natural language processing and text mining functions. Linguamatics describes the tie up as an “expansion of strategic collaboration with Pfizer”.
Linguamatics is a Cambridge, England-based company specializing in ferreting meaning from text. The company has a low profile in the United States, but its approach makes it possible for a user to interact with the system via a dialog. This is essentially a question-and-answer approach with the system and the user exchanging information.
Beyond Search identified Linguamatics as one of 24 companies to watch in its new study of companies able to breathe new life into traditioinal search and retrieval systems.
Pifzer will use the I2E system as an information platform. One feature of I2E is its ability to perform text mining, the process of discovering and extracting key facts and relationships from internal and external literature sources to support decision making.
Pharmaceutical companies in general have been early adopters of information access technologies that can keep their competitive edges sharp. A single item of research data could have a significant financial impact. The compartmentalization of information within drug companies was once considered standard operating procedure can be detrimental to some business goals. In the last five years, Pfizer has demonstrated an appetitive for content processing, business intelligence, and text mining technologies. Furthermore, Pfizer has looked outside the US for information technologies that can reduce costs and increase the financial performance of the company. For example, Pfizer has tapped the French company Temis for other information processing systems.
Pfizer, whose shares are in the $20 range, is on track to meet its profit forecast. The company, like others in the pharmaceutical sector, faces increasing competition and cost control pressure in a harsh economic climate. Information technology appears to be a key part of the company’s broader business strategy.
Additional information about Linguamatics is available from the company’s Web site. The company is profiled in Beyond Search: What to Do When Your Enterprise Search Systems Won’t Work, now available from the Gilbane Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The analysis of Linguamatics is one of the few in-depth descriptions of the I2E technology now available and positioned within the broader “market map” of vendors providing technology that address the problems of traditional key word search systems.
Stephen Arnold, April 16, 2008
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