SCIQUEST has expanded a major contact with Merck while also adding new features to its research and laboratory e-marketplace offerings. The launch of Merck Marketplace, an internal lab supply e-commerce initiative, will be accelerated this year. Among new features, SciQuest is offering a chromatogram library and a universal scientific catalog. The catalog aggregates1.6 million products in 3,000 categories for easier selection and purchasing. SciQuest estimates that scientific suppliers together spend more than $100 million on printing and distributing paper catalogs, which typically show only list prices, lack full product details, and can be outdated as soon as they are printed.

LABVORTEX.COM is now a functional site for lab professionals to buy parts and access related support for laboratory instruments. The site uses a visual identification system that lets users move through schematic computer-aided-design drawings or digital photographs to find the components or replacement parts they need. Various suppliers are partnering with LabVortex.com to add to its instrument database.

e-Marketplaces

CHEMCONNECT reports that it saw record trading volumes on its commodities floor in the first quarter. The company attributes the increased volume to the highly volatile energy market. It believes that companies and traders want to take advantage of fluctuating prices and uncertain market conditions and are using the commodities floor to gauge market activity and conduct spot trades. More than 1.4 million metric tons of commodity chemicals were traded in the first quarter, with average transaction values hitting $1.25 million by the end of March. The site also saw triple-digit growth in benzene, methanol, and methyl tert-butyl ether transactions. Only prequalified members can trade 10 standard, high-volume petrochemical products on the floor. Competitor CheMatch.com also reported record activity with 900,000 metric tons of product traded on its exchange in the first quarter. This represents an increase of 91% from the previous quarter. Average transaction values were more than $500,000.

  YET2.COM, which operates an online intellectual property exchange, will now be linked to sites in a variety of industries. Users of the ChemFinder.com, ChemNews.com, ChipCenter, Intota, NASA Tech Briefs, and Semiconbay sites will have search capabilities for yet2.com's e-marketplace. Some of the sites will also post yet2.com's "Tech of the Week" feature that highlights a specific technology and its inventor. Nearly 60 major technology developers, including many in chemicals, are offering intellectual property for sale on the yet2.com site.

CHEMORBIS has been launched as the first e-marketplace in Turkey. Its goal is to bring online the world's second largest import market for chemicals. ChemOrbis hopes to become the access point for more than 2.5 million tons per year of chemical imports. It will initially focus on polymers and on attracting trading members, specifically local buyers, to move online.

Services

CHEM SYSTEMS is offering a suite of online planning and decision-making tools. The chemical consulting firm's interactive software products support forecasting and trend analysis, customized portfolio or corporate performance monitoring, and other simulations and scenario planning. At the core is a petrochemical industry simulator that models markets, supply, demand, consumption, processes, production, profitability, and trade using online and real-time, as well as historical or uploadable, information and data.

INTOTA and BIOSPACE.COM have created a cobranded website, http://biospace.intota.com, that combines BioSpace's life sciences information resources with Intota's scientific and technical expert network. BioSpace says its client base includes almost every U.S. biotechnology and pharmaceutical company. With the link to Intota, users can receive confidential answers to technical and business questions.

CHEMFINET SERVICES has been acquired by International Specialty Chemicals (ISC). The deal merges Chemfinet's technology for posting requests for custom chemicals and accepting bids with ISC's more traditional brokering services. This business model combination is expected to add Internet-based speed and efficiency to ISC's industry knowledge and experience.

LABVELOCITY has released its first application designed for both manufacturers and distributors of life sciences products. The new tools let companies manage and categorize all product data and relevant scientific content so the companies can then offer parametrically searchable databases to customers. LabVelocity says its software and hosted business solutions were designed by scientists and those in industry to address the purchasing needs and behavior of scientists at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Companies

BAYER continues to expand its e-business activities and anticipates having as much as $4.5 billion of its sales through the Internet by 2004, up from about $225 million in 2000. The 2004 figure is roughly 16% of the company's overall sales today. However, for some parts of the company, Bayer says as much as 50% of revenues will be derived online. By the end of this year, Bayer says it will invest about $90 million in developing e-business ventures and applications. It has set up an electronic business initiative to monitor specific uses for e-business and has identified 100 potential applications. The company already has created seven transaction-oriented sites for some of its customers, has five business or industry-related information portals, and is involved in six different e-marketplaces and exchanges. "We're going for an optimum mix of old and new economy," says Werner Spinner, a member of Bayer's management board. "This will give rise to entirely new forms of customer relations."

Please send submissions for E-Business to Ann Thayer , a_thayer@acs.org

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