ABSTRACT
In today's global environment, health-related threats are a top concern. These threats can come from SARS, monkey pox, chronic diseases, or bioterrorism and have accelerated the activity of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies looking for new and improved solutions. A primary challenge for these companies is transforming complex and dynamic data into a new therapeutic agent. With the high cost of drug development and only 30% of approved drugs recovering these costs, the pharmaceutical industry is under growing pressure to streamline and optimize the identification of novel therapeutic agents. Bioinformatics helps mitigate risk by enabling scientists to develop therapeutic agents where the probability of success is the highest. Bioinformatics streamlines the drug discovery process and benefits the market-driven firm. This article introduces and defines bioinformatics, presents its value, discusses the globalization of the market, and spotlights the strategies employed by Oracle and IBM with respect to their roles in the development of bioinformatics platforms.