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May 14, 2013

Ayasdi Named "Cool Vendor" by Gartner

By: Jeff Yoshimura

As the Wall Street Journal noted this past March, two and a half years ago, Dr. Pek Lum, a biologist who had spent more than a decade in pharmaceuticals, saw a stunning discovery when she met Ayasdi’s co-founders for the first time. By complete coincidence, they happened to be looking at a breast cancer dataset that she had produced while at Merck twelve years before. She knew this dataset inside and out. But, using Ayasdi’s software, she saw something strikingly different and unique.

Specifically, Pek saw that the data formed a “Y” shape that looked like a two-earned worm. Within minutes, she identified a new sub-population of surviving patients that, based on their genetic markers, were supposed to have died. Having used nearly every leading analytical and statistical tool available, Pek immediately knew that Ayasdi’s co-founders were onto something big. Soon after, Pek joined Ayasdi as the VP of Solutions and Chief Data Scientist and worked to get this discovery scientifically validated and published in Nature's Scientific Reports.

Based on this work and much more, we are incredibly honored to be recognized by Gartner as a ‘Cool Vendor’ that is "innovative, impactful and intriguing" in the area of life sciences.

Today, we work with many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations, such as Merck, BN ImmunoTherapeutics (a subsidiary of Bavarian Nordic), Mount Sinai Medical Center, and UCSF. Our approach using Topological Data Analysis (TDA) is helping scientists and researchers automatically identify important and unique relationships in highly complex datasets across a wide variety of areas including cancer, diabetes, E-Coli, traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, and autism.

Congratulations to Pek — and to our entire team — who have helped make this recognition possible. And, more importantly, we send a special thank you to our customers and collaborators for working with us to help them find breakthrough insights that will eventually help improve lives all over the world.

About the Gartner Cool Vendor Report:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.