WIPO Contributes Millions of Searchable Chemical Formulas to Database at U.S. National Institutes of Health
March 25, 2020
Discovering and developing treatments in order to alleviate suffering, bend the mortality curve and improve quality of life is a long journey. It comprises many innovative stages: in short, it starts with the understanding of the process behind a disease, followed by the identification of a molecule or compound and then by the confirmation of the positive and safe effect on patients.
By contributing 16 million chemical formulas to PubChem - an open chemistry database at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - WIPO helps prioritize hit compounds for further screening. A direct access from PubChem to WIPO’s free of charge global patent database PATENTSCOPE makes this possible.
This direct link allows users performing searches in PubChem to view in PATENTSCOPE patent documents related to their search. Once they have found a compound that is of interest to them, they will be able to search patent documents related to that compound, in WIPO’s global patent database with just one click: a pre-defined PATENTSCOPE search is available in the section Patents of Pubchem searching automatically all patent documents that relate to the compound. A high percentage of the information found in a patent is not available from any other source. Users will also find additional information about their search, such as the main actors in the related field, in the Analysis section of the PATENTSCOPE results page.
WIPO has made chemical information available, through chemical compound exact search and sub-structure search, in PATENTSCOPE, in collaboration with the software company InfoChem, a DeepMatter Group company, which provided its proprietary cheminformatics tools and expertise to enable WIPO to bring this capability to market. Those chemical formulas are now available through PubChem. Every month, millions of unique users take advantage of the great resources provided by PubChem. It serves as a key resource for many research fields, such as cheminformatics, chemical biology, medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. PubChem also presents a strong potential as an education resource, especially for small organizations such as undergraduate institutions and community colleges.
PATENTSCOPE chemical information in PubChem, in addition to WIPO Re:Search and Pat‑INFORMED, reinforces WIPO’s contribution to ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages (SDG 3).