Optibrium Scales Drug Discovery Solution to up to 10,000 Concurrent Users Using Amazon AppStream 2.0

Contact Us

“Using AWS, we can make StarDrop available to customers 24/7/365.” - Ian Smith, Chief Technology Officer, Optibrium

AWS_Optibrium - Page

Drug discovery is a long and expensive process that can be littered with failure. Companies are looking to maximize their investment by identifying useful compounds as early as possible with the aim of getting valuable treatments to patients in need. An early part of the process looks at researching, modeling, and evaluating thousands of novel compounds for their efficacy in treating diseases. To enhance the efficiency and productivity of drug discovery, Optibrium offers its predictive modeling drug discovery solution, StarDrop, which is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Using Amazon AppStream 2.0—a secure, reliable, and scalable application streaming and low-cost virtual desktop service—Optibrium offers StarDrop in the cloud to a global user base, making it accessible from a web browser on supported internet-connected devices to reduce complexity and deployment time.

Offering a Full Desktop Experience from a Browser Using Amazon AppStream 2.0
 
Optibrium’s comprehensive in silico platform improves the speed, efficiency, and productivity of the small molecule discovery process and supports a worldwide customer base, including leading pharma, biotech, agrochemical, and flavoring companies and not-for-profit and academic groups. With in silico modeling, Optibrium helps customers virtually simulate thousands of potential compound candidates so that suitable ones can be investigated further.
 
StarDrop launched as a self-hosted desktop application, but Optibrium wanted to simplify deployment and reduce the total cost of ownership for customers by virtualizing a full desktop experience of the application from a web browser. “Amazon AppStream 2.0 gave us the most flexibility and best performance, which made it the right choice for us,” says Ian Smith, Chief Technology Officer at Optibrium. Optibrium developed and released StarDrop in the cloud within 6 months. “The speed to market was incredibly quick for us,” says Smith.
 
Supporting up to 10,000 Concurrent Users Globally with High Availability and Security on AWS
 
StarDrop in the cloud dynamically scales on AWS to support a range of customers, from academic organizations with 1 scientist to pharmaceutical companies with 500 researchers. The solution supports up to 10,000 concurrent users with the same performance and user experience as the desktop application. “Using AWS, we can make StarDrop available to customers 24/7/365,” says Smith. The company achieves high availability using AWS best practices. To protect its customers’ sensitive data, Optibrium uses AWS security tools for data encryption, continuous threat monitoring, distributed denial of service protection, and traffic filtering.
 
Optibrium’s customers save time and money because they no longer need to manage and maintain IT infrastructure and software installations for drug discovery. “Customers can start accessing StarDrop from a web browser in a matter of hours instead of needing months to deploy it,” says Smith. Because StarDrop in the cloud is virtualized, Optibrium can update and deliver new features directly to users. Over time, Optibrium will no longer need to support multiple versions of StarDrop in production, which streamlines the development lifecycle for faster feature innovation.

Becoming a Software-as-a-Service Company Using AWS

Optibrium continues to innovate StarDrop on AWS and is working on new cross-organization collaboration features for securely sharing compound designs, visualizations, and modeling data. “Our goal is to offer a class-leading experience and flexibility for all our customers, using AWS to modernize our existing capabilities and offer new products,” says Smith. “For example, we’ve recently launched a second Appstream-based platform called Semeta, which is a metabolite prediction application. There are plans for more, too!”

AWS_Optibrium - Page

Leading Cloud Innovators in Europe

Learn how leading organizations in Europe across industries trust AWS to drive innovation at every level of their business. 

Find out how

AWS Customer Success Stories

Organizations of all sizes use AWS to increase agility, lower costs, and accelerate innovation in the cloud.

Learn how » 

AWS Customer Success Stories

More Life Sciences Customer Stories

no items found 

1 …
…

Get Started

Organizations of all sizes across all industries are transforming their businesses and delivering on their missions every day using AWS. Contact our experts and start your own AWS journey today.

Contact Sales