IDG forms new Life Sciences unit; enters into alliance w/ Reed Bus. Info.

IDC (Framingham, MA), a unit of International Data Group, has formed Life Science Insights, a new research and advisory practice division that will focus on providing life science companies with market and technology intelligence, commentary and analysis.

The new unit's services will be targeted to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, life science tools and technology vendors, IT vendors, and consultant and professional services companies. IDC said the unit was created to address the explosion of biological data that needs to be analyzed, managed, stored and transformed into applications in such fields as nanotechnology, proteomics and systems biology.

Life Sciences services include: market sizing/forecast data on life science technology markets; a series of subscription "Continuous Intelligence Services" that cover such topics as drug discovery and development, clinical trials, bio-IT, chem-IT and laboratory automation; and, leading indicators and benchmarking studies.

Also, IDG has formed an alliance with Reed Business Information (New York) to expand distribution of Reed's three titles currently distributed in China and to launch additional titles for that market. IDG is licensing EDN China, Electronics Manufacturing China and Control Engineering China content from Reed and producing the magazines. New titles to be introduced in China, such as Variety and Packaging Digest, among others, will be a joint venture between the two companies.