Behind the Code: Exploring Scilligence’s Software Design

April 1st, 2024

In this blog post, we wanted to walk you through the software design philosophy at Scilligence. We pride ourselves on three “pillars” — client needs, industry trends, and market gaps — as fundamental to our success. Collectively, these pillars help us gain a comprehensive understanding of, our clients, the marketplace, and our competitors. They are inter-related and have helped us to make strategic decisions leading to long-term success.

Client Needs
Understanding client needs is the best way for us to keep pace with your demands and to manage short- and long-term expectations (surrounding the same demands):

  • Crucial Feedback: Client needs are what got us started in this space! By listening to your suggestions, problem areas, pain-points, and overall feedback, we gain insights to improve our offerings. Listening to your feedback has helped direct our focus towards improving our products and offerings — this can involve anything from bug fixes, optimizations, to upgrades and entirely new features. It is tremendously helpful to us as it lets us know what to do for you.
  • Stronger Relationships: We foster trust and loyalty by listening to our clients to ensure you feel heard and understood. We take the time to listen as we value your business and your input to create a positive and engaging relationship. This leads to better products and services, happier clients, and a more successful business overall.

“A fundamental belief at Scilligence” Tony Yuan, Director of R&D says, “is that we listen to our clients. Why? Because our business would not exist without them. We need them to be successful in every regard.”

Industry Trends
Analyzing industry trends is critical for us to thrive and here's why:

  • Informed Decisions: Analyzing industry trends has helped us make data-driven choices. We apply this principle to everything from product development to marketing strategies. Perhaps there is a rising demand for a feature that we have not offered before, or a new function that can help make data analysis faster and easier. A good example of this is the Antibody Drug Conjugate form in RegMol (which is our registration software). We built this function from the ground-up with the idea that users will prefer to register the individual components of an ADC and then use them to “piece together” or assemble the ADC itself. Being aware of these trends helps us to not only identify new opportunities but also identify areas for growth and improvement as well.
  • Adapting and Evolving: As the scientific community makes new discoveries that increase our understanding of biological processes, there is a need for informatics solutions that accommodate the new paradigm. We are constantly analyzing trends, so we can stay informed about the latest developments and ensure that our offerings are relevant. We innovate and adapt, manage risks, and stay competitive to keep pace with the changing landscape.

Staying updated with industry trends is a critical aspect of our software design philosophy as it empowers us to make informed decisions, plan our roadmap, and be industry pioneers. All of this helps us stay on top of our game and get the best products out to you.

Market Gaps
We see market gap analysis as a vital process for our software design because it helps us uncover hidden opportunities for growth and success. They represent opportunities for us to innovate, optimize existing offerings, or develop new ones to better cater to your unaddressed needs.

  • Unmet Needs: Market gaps represent areas where client needs are not being fully satisfied by the current informatics market. By identifying these gaps, we develop innovative solutions so that we can address unmet needs. In some cases, this has led to entirely new product offerings such as the formulation workflow for designing lipid nano-particles (LNPs).
  • Building Client Base: By filling a market gap, we have been able to serve a new pool of potential clients who were currently underserved. In fact, this has been the driving philosophy that perfectly blends features and functions across a centralized, unified platform that clients were previously “cobbling together” from disparate options.
  • Competitive Advantage: Addressing a market gap also gives us a significant edge over our competition. We were the first ones to build the HELM Web Editor in collaboration with the Pistoia Alliance. We have pioneered this technology that effectively fulfills the unmet need of representing macromolecules. At the same time, we have captured a loyal client base long before our competitors who are only now entering this space.

Analyzing market gaps informs us where to focus our attention and what features and functions to develop and has allowed us to distinguish ourselves from the competition.

In conclusion: Industry Trends + Client Needs + Market Gaps = Solutions that work for you. By bringing these three elements together at Scilligence we have developed a strong understanding of our target market and have positioned ourselves to offer solutions that truly resonate with our clients.