Our History

Celebrating our 11th year in business!

Founded in September 1998 in Bozeman, Montana, Golden Helix is an industry leader in predictive analytics, with its extraordinary recursive partitioning engine currently in use at eight of the world’s top ten pharmaceutical companies, dozens of globally renowned academic institutions, several federal governments, and many leading commercial companies.

In 1998, Dr. Christophe Lambert teamed up with Dr. Doug Hawkins from the University of Minnesota to develop a tree-based recursive partitioning tool capable of performing multivariate analysis. Dr. Hawkins and Dr. Lambert developed a unique, patented algorithm for real time analysis of data sets of virtually unlimited size called Formal Inference-based Recursive Modeling, or FIRM. FIRM technology proved to be incredibly powerful and is still the only tree-based approach to discover true multi-way splits in addition to offering a simple and intuitive user interface, forests of random trees, and multivariate analysis.

In the late 1990’s, a new branch of genomics, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, was becoming increasingly popular among genetic researchers. Researchers were attempting to uncover associations between genetic and environmental factors and disease using large numbers of patients and massive amounts of genetic data.

Golden Helix realized that its fast recursive partitioning algorithm would be ideal for researchers attempting to uncover significant associations within the human genome. In late 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, then Glaxo-Wellcome, invested in Golden Helix to develop HelixTree, the world’s leading SNP analysis software.

At the same time, Golden Helix also recognized the need for a fast and efficient tool in the field of cheminformatics that would enable researchers to quickly and accurately identify target compounds for drug development. Concurrent with the release of HelixTree, Golden Helix unveiled ChemTree, an authoritative tool for determining the quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR’s) of compounds to aid researchers seeking chemical compounds for the creation of new drugs.

From 2001 to 2005, Golden Helix received federal grants from the National Institutes of Health to fund extensive R&D for HelixTree. With this funding and the increasing demand for cutting edge SNP analysis software, Golden Helix focused its development and marketing efforts towards HelixTree, expanding and enhancing the elegant, intuitive workflow and interface of the FIRM technology to develop an unparalleled SNP analysis tool.

Today, Golden Helix continues to develop its products and services, which now encompass three major platforms: SNP & Variation, Drug Discovery and Predictive Analytics. Golden Helix’s products remain the industry standard and have been cited in over 100 peer reviewed articles. Golden Helix is committed to Accelerating the Quest for Significance!