News for all the chemists out there is that Elsevier have sold MDL to Symyx
(including Beilstein/Crossfire) .
What does that mean? Well I guess it may lead to better bench tools for chemists and better integration with lab hardware/software. Will it mean less emphasis on database development? Possibly though MDL’s databases never seemed to be big sellers somehow (with the exception of Beilstein of course).
I’ve always thought that MDL interfaces could do with some cleaning up and modernization (not that I have had much of a change to play with Discoverygate which of course is their web interface) so hopefully with a better understanding of the needs of bench chemist’s that’s what Symyx will do.
MDL never seemed a terribly good fit with Elsevier somehow whose primary markets are not chemists. Time will tell if it turns out to be better or worse for customers.
