EMAX Solution Partners Announces Strategic Marketing Agreement with Sigma-Aldrich

EMAX Solution Partners, Inc., the pioneer of software and Internet solutions for optimizing the supply chain of high throughput drug discovery organizations, announced today a joint marketing agreement with Sigma Aldrich—the world's largest provider of chemicals used by researchers and chemists in university, government and commercial laboratories.

As a cornerstone of this strategic collaboration, EMAX and Sigma-Aldrich will jointly extend current chemical e-business open standards to enable the best-in-class integration of Web-based chemical procurement applications with research supply chain and material management solutions. With this new open standard as a platform, OPTIMA e-Research software from EMAX will seamlessly integrate with the Sigma-Aldrich PIPELINE (Partners in Procurement Efficiency) e-commerce system to develop an integrated, worldwide supply chain for management of research chemicals and materials from the point of initial requisition through disposal.

"Our customers already rely upon us as their prime supplier of research products," said Blake Hibray, vice president of sales for Sigma-Aldrich. "Partnering with EMAX will enable us to integrate our Web-based e-commerce and information services into the heart of our customers' workflow. This combination of electronic technical support, e-procurement and full-circle tracking will enable our customers to streamline and automate the flow of chemicals through every stage of their supply chains."

According to Mark Robillard, vice president of Internet solutions for EMAX, "The rapid acceptance of Web-based procurement systems provides strong evidence of the value of integrating the management of chemical entities into the research process--but it is an incomplete solution because procurement is just one link in the chain. We are excited to join with Sigma-Aldrich to establish a new paradigm for how life science research operations of all sizes can achieve dramatic supply chain efficiencies through the deployment of innovative e-business solutions."

OPTIMA product software from EMAX unites scientists, research managers and suppliers into a collaborative e-service network enabling on-demand, research enterprise-wide management of the substances and reagents that enable high throughput drug discovery. By eliminating the traditionally time-consuming search for research substances and reagents, OPTIMA enables scientists to fully focus on lead discovery and decreases the cost per lead by enabling capacity and throughput optimization throughout the discovery operation.

The Sigma-Aldrich PIPELINE e-commerce system offers simple, on-line access to more than 200,000 products from the Sigma, Aldrich, Fluka, Supelco and Riedel-de Haen brands. PIPELINE is the only e-commerce solution that provides robust search capabilities and access to thousands of product data sheets, two million certificates of analysis and 90,000 Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS).

About Sigma-Aldrich
Sigma-Aldrich develops, manufactures and distributes the broadest range of high quality biochemicals, organic chemicals, chromatography products and diagnostic reagents available in the world. The Company's products are used in high-tech research and development in universities and industry, in the diagnosis of disease, and as specialty chemicals for pharmaceutical and other manufacturing purposes in more than 160 countries. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to the success of its customers through science, technology and service.

About EMAX Solution Partners
Based near Philadelphia, EMAX Solution Partners, Inc. is the leading innovator of software and Internet solutions enabling life science research organizations to optimize their supply chain and a domain expert in drug discovery work processes and technologies. EMAX helps clients gain competitive advantage through the application of information technology to speed lead discovery by streamlining the enterprise management of reagents and proprietary substances that are procured, created and used throughout global discovery research operations.