IPA to be Discontinued

IPA has historically been a leader in pathway analysis, in part due to its proprietary pathway database for human, mouse and rat. Over the past several years, freely available pathway databases and open-source tools for pathway analysis have become available. These tools rival Qiagen’s IPA and support a broader set of study species. Several of these open-source tools have become the solutions preferred by MSI’s analysts. Going forward, MSI will be providing more explicit support for these alternative tools.

 

For the last several years, MSI has reviewed the software licenses we purchase to make sure our software offerings line up with our mission to provide high performance computing (HPC) services. IPA runs on Qiagen’s servers, not our HPC infrastructure, which complicates supporting and managing the software, as well as justifying it in relation to our mission. Lastly, IPA is also one of the most expensive licenses MSI purchases and the cost has been steadily increasing each year. In our current budget climate, MSI can no longer justify this expenditure when there are equally powerful free options available.