ioChem-BD to be commercialised in Japan

ICIQ and the Japanese engineering firm ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation have signed a license agreement granting ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation the right to commercialise the ioChem-BD software in Japan. “Seeing how our software is widely adopted by academia and an interesting business opportunity to IT companies says a lot about our team’s scientific background and capabilities,” says Prof. Carles Bo, one of the promoters of ioChem-BD and Group Leader at ICIQ.

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions is  a comprehensive IT services company that partners with its customers. From consulting to design, development and construction, operational and maintenance support, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions combines sophisticated IT solutions and cloud services to find solutions to customer issues. The company provides optimum services in all fields including communication, broadcasting, manufacturing, finance, logistics and retail, public services, life sciences, science and engineering. The agreement will allow ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation to distribute the software among its clients in South-East Asia. Now, ioChem-BD will become an integral part of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation’s portfolio of software tools.

ioChem-BD is a digital repository aimed to manage, store and publish Computational Chemistry Datasets created by the ICIQ Computational chemistry groups (Bo, López and Maseras) in collaboration with Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and Universitat Auntònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The software can be further retrieved and rendered into graphics and other types of output files.

As an Open-Access and Open-Source initiative, ioChem-BD allows researchers to further analyse data published by their peers, or start new studies based on previously existing work. The new agreement with ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation won’t alter the distribution of the software in Open-Source format, but it will now be distributed under a dual licensing model.

“This represents a significant milestone in the growth of ioChem-BD, which is now made available in different formats across the globe and has the potential to reach a greater audience”, says Dr. Frédéric Ratel, manager of Industrial Property at ICIQ.

The Japanese company will deliver an extra layer of accessibility to its clients, who will benefit from the work jointly developed by ICIQ and ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation during 2021 to adapt the software for ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation’s customers’ needs. For instance, the software can now be used on different cloud services, such as the Microsoft or Amazon services.

Since its creation in 2015, ioChem-BD has seen its value recognised by the computational community. For instance, the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, published by Wiley, now lists the open-access platform as one of the solutions to publish computational data about molecules and materials. The software has also been included in Nature’s Scientific Data Recommended Data Repositories allowing the whole community to easily publish the results of computational chemistry research projects. “ioChem-BD is a machine to create databases. Nowadays those who want to work with data, and do it well, find that ioChem-BD is a great asset,” claims Bo.