MDL introduced specifications for chemical file formats, including the molfile (.mol), and structure/data file (.sdf) which were subsequently placed in the public domain and have become standards for representing structures in 2-D drawings and for transferring such information with associated data, for example identifiers, chemical names and substance properties. The software is now branded as BIOVIA Draw. īy 2007, MDL (then owned by Reed Elsevier) merged with Symyx Technologies, which in turn was acquired by Accelrys in 2010 and is now owned by Dassault Systèmes. MDL released many versions of the software and made ISIS/Draw freely available for non-commercial use: version 2.5 was available to run on Windows 98. ISIS/Draw structures could be incorporated into other documents, for example using the word processor software which was becoming available in the 1980s, hence providing full electronic publishing for chemists.

They also introduced ISIS/Base, a chemical database program suited to the storage of relatively small numbers of structures with associated data for personal use independently of corporate systems.

MDL offered their ISIS (Integrated Scientific Information System) products including ISIS/Draw as components of the MACCS system, specifically to allow chemists to use a graphical interface to register new compounds into corporate databases and to search these databases by structure or part-structure. The company developed software to store and search chemical structures in large databases under the brand name MACCS (Molecular ACCess System), which was targeted at pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies. Corey in developing software for planning organic syntheses. Todd Wipke in 1978, following the latter's experience with E. Molecular Design Limited (MDL) was founded by Stuart Marson and W. It introduced a number of file formats for the storage of chemical information that have become industry standards. ISIS/Draw was a chemical structure drawing program developed by MDL Information Systems.

An example of a diagram drawn using ISIS/Draw

Isis draw 2.5 free download