Dassault Systèmes Analyst Conference Brief 2019
By: Sandra K. Rodriguez, Market Analyst
The news out of this years’ Dassault Systèmes Analyst Conference was huge: a $5.8 Billion merger offer with clinical data giant, Medidata. We received the news while traveling from our hotel to the Dassault Systèmes headquarters, nestled in Vélizy-Villacoublay, France. Aside from the size of the deal – the largest in the history of Dassault Systèmes – Medidata was the missing link in its powerful portfolio to support the Life-Science industry.
Bernard Charlès, CEO and vice-chairman of the board of directors at Dassault Systèmes, opened the two-day meeting with, “To do ‘smart’ anything, you need to know the environment. The platform phenomenon is not an IT topic… it’s a new way for companies to work.” Dassault Systèmes now has 250,000 customers, with 25 million users in 140 countries. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform currently consists of 11 brands/applications that support the ability for people and businesses to develop, collaborate and build products and services in both the virtual and real worlds.
Dassault Systèmes considers itself a Scientific company, first and foremost. The Industry Renaissance theme of this years’ conference was explained in simple terms by Morgan Zimmermann, CEO for NETVIBES-EXALEAD (the Dassault Systèmes solution for turning large amounts of information into intelligence). “Think of Renaissance as the new book. The book changed how we distributed knowledge; Industry Renaissance for Dassault Systèmes is the usage of experience as a new way to distribute knowledge and know-how” explained Zimmermann.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform offers both people and businesses, virtual universes to imagine, develop and collaborate using innovative solutions.
Life is the New Work Bench
Mentioned earlier in this brief, Medidata was the missing link in the Dassault Systèmes solution platform to support end-to-end product development in the Life-Sciences. “Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies require roughly ten to twelve years in the R&D phase to bring a drug or therapy to market” explained Claire Biot, Ph.D., VP of Life Sciences Industry at Dassault Systèmes. Therefore, shifting that timeline left early on in the clinical trial phase of a product adds significant value to Life-Sciences companies.
Clinical trials are necessary to prove the safety and efficacy of a drug on not only a patient population, but the medical condition itself.