Philosophy: The Most Powerful Force Known to Man

OpenEye was founded to develop a radically new form of molecular modeling. Our guiding philosophy is that it is sufficient to accurately quantify the shape and electrostatics of a molecule for the purposes of lead discovery. Following that philosophy, we provide tools that vastly increase the scale of operation of computational chemistry in drug design. Since there are an almost infinite (10**200) number of feasible drug-like molecules, a productive discovery process will lead to effective drug candidates.

Our Scientific Philosophy

OpenEye is run differently than most other chemistry software companies, in part because, we are very focused on the science. In that, we have strong opinions about the right way to do computational drug design, and we are seldom shy about telling people. Our mantra has long been that the chemistry of molecular interactions boils down to shape and electrostatics. It should be obvious that doing both of those well is necessary for lead generation and optimization. It is sufficient, as well.

It should be also apparent that one simply can not do virtual lead generation unless one can screen databases of tens of billions of compounds. By focusing simply on the above two tenets and adhering to best programming practices, OpenEye software is able to vastly increase the scale of operation of computational chemistry in drug design.

When screening millions of compounds, speed is not the only important factor. Robustness also is critical, so that one corner case with unusual chemistry does not bring a program to a crashing halt. OpenEye has designed and tested all its software, including core cheminformatics libraries, with such robustness as a primary consideration.

Expect more about our scientific tenets here in the future, but in the meantime please browse the numerous OpenEye scientific presentations and a selected bibliography.

Our Business Philosophy

OpenEye Scientific Software, Inc. is a C-class corporation wholly owned by its employees and friends and financed by the success of its products. OpenEye has no venture investment and has never taken government handouts. OpenEye develops large-scale modeling applications and toolkits, primarily geared towards drug discovery and design. The software is designed for scientific rigor, as well as speed, scalability, and platform independence. OpenEye is a software company; OpenEye is not a drug company, does not develop drugs, and does not intend to develop drugs.

OpenEye sells software in the following manner:

• Licenses allow unlimited usage (installed computers and platforms, simultaneous jobs, multiple processors). We want you to get as much use as possible out of our code.
• Licenses are site-wide or as part of a per-user package or a non-commercial, per-research group package.
• Perpetual licenses mean you only purchase once. You may pay annually for software updates and support if you wish. Such licenses allow unlimited users site-wide; they are site-based with discounts for multiple sites. Installation at one site for use by other sites is considered multiple sites.
• The annual, per user package, provides named users access to essentially all our application software.
• If you are doing non-commercial research, our code may be free (without support). We consider this on a case-by-case basis and reserve the right to refuse applicants.
• Non-commercial customers now have the option to purchase licenses, which include support and allow for future commercialization or patenting of research. See Annual Software Packages.
• If you wish to use our software for something other than in-house drug-design, for instance in a service capacity, we will impose additional restrictions. If you wish to build software for sale on top of our toolkits, we are willing to work out terms.
• We publish our pricing for both perpetual and annual licenses, so you know we are giving you the same deal we give everyone.
• If you want one piece of software, great. If you want access to all of our software, that's fine too.
• We do not sell source. If you want a toolkit (i.e. linkable libraries) rather than executables we either have it or will have it in the near future. If you want Python libraries - no problem.