Accelrys Adds Another Scientific Software Company to Its Portfolio

After merging with Symyx Technologies in 2010, acquiring Contur Sofware in 2011, and buying VelQuest earlier this year, San Diego scientific software developer Accelrys (Nasdaq: [[ticker:ACCL]]) says today it is buying Aegis Analytical.

Accelrys is paying $30 million in cash for Aegis, a company based in Lafayette, CO, (near Boulder) that makes software used to monitor biotech product development and manufacturing processes. In a statement today, Accelrys says the deal helps to further expand its suite of software used to manage the life cycle of innovation among pharmaceutical companies and in other industries.

Aegis has about 40 full-time and contract employees, and “the idea is to keep the business in Boulder and fairly intact,” Accelrys CFO Michael Piraino told me during a phone interview earlier this afternoon. Aegis CEO Robert Di Scipio will stay with the merged company through the transition to new ownership.

About two-thirds of Accelrys’ customers are pharmaceutical and biotech companies, according to Piraino. The company also provides its software-as-a-service to customers specializing in oil & gas development, cleantech, food and beverage, and other industries.

The company’s statement quotes Accelrys CEO Max Carnecchia as saying, “The industries we serve are undergoing significant changes, requiring them to move from a status quo approach to one that breaks down the barriers to operational excellence, innovation productivity and global competitiveness.”

Accelrys says companies that operate in regulated environments are finding it difficult to manage complex manufacturing in real-time because they’re relying on paper notebooks and other outmoded tools to monitor R&D, quality assurance, and other industrial processes.

Accelrys says addressing such problems requires a global and holistic approach that enables businesses to predict, prevent, and solve problems throughout product development, quality control, and manufacturing process. Accelrys says that without the kind of cloud-based software it provides, companies risk compromising the quality of their products, falling out of regulatory compliance, slowing operations and increasing commercialization costs.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.