Industry
Life Sciences
Challenge
AbbVie’s research teams faced limitations with standard search and CSV exports - struggling to query nested JSON, generate rich Excel outputs, avoid over-engineering, and build a sustainable, extensible framework for future scientific needs.
Solution and Results
Datavid enhanced AbbVie’s research platform by extending MarkLogic with a custom search API, triple-based property queries, and a lightweight XLSX export library. The result was a flexible, scientist-friendly system that accelerated insights, reduced maintenance from days to minutes, delivered reusable components across projects, and ensured long-term sustainability at lower cost.
Technology used
Microsoft.NET, Progress MarkLogic Server 11, mlcp, Gradle + ml-gradle , XQuery and Server-Side JavaScript (SJS)
About AbbVie
AbbVie is a global biopharmaceutical leader dedicated to solving serious health challenges through advanced science. With a strong legacy in immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care, AbbVie consistently ranks among the world’s top pharmaceutical companies for its innovation and impact on patients’ lives.Setting the Scene
Drug discovery is one of the most data-intensive and complex processes in the life sciences industry. Researchers must navigate decades of experimental results, ongoing studies, and past campaigns to inform the next breakthrough. In this environment, the ability to search, connect, and interpret vast datasets quickly is not just convenient, it is critical to accelerating innovation, reducing costs, and maintaining competitive advantage.
AbbVie’s internal drug discovery, TCPR2, platform plays a central role in this mission, serving as a single place where scientists and researchers can access past and current drug projects, test results, campaigns, and related data.
To stay effective, the platform needed to evolve beyond fast, relevance-based search and enable granular property-specific queries (such as identifying projects by molecule or target). At the same time, researchers required a seamless way to export results into Excel (XLSX) with multiple worksheets and rich formatting for deeper analysis and reporting.
The Challenges
AbbVie needed to go beyond standard search features to enable property-specific queries across deeply nested JSON data. Meeting this requirement meant extending MarkLogic’s powerful foundation with a custom approach tailored for scientific discovery.
Another challenge lay in the export requirements. Researchers requested the ability to export results into Excel (XLSX) with multiple worksheets and custom layouts. The existing CSV outputs were too limited for scientific analysis and reporting, and AbbVie needed a richer solution that would meet the expectations of its research teams.
At the same time, the team was keen on avoiding over-engineering. While new features were essential, it was equally important to deliver them without introducing unnecessary external services or complexity, which could create additional points of failure and inflate maintenance costs.
Finally, sustainability was a critical priority. AbbVie required a design that was extensible and reusable so that future enhancements could be delivered quickly and cost-effectively. Instead of facing repeated cycles of rework, the company wanted a framework that would continue to evolve with its scientific needs.
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The Solution
Building on the strong MarkLogic Foundation, Datavid implemented a custom extensible search API and XLSX export capability to meet AbbVie’s needs for flexibility and scientific precision.
- Triplefication for Property Search
JSON documents were transformed into RDF triples capturing both values and their position in the hierarchy. This allowed AbbVie to translate “dotted path” queries (e.g., project.target.molecule = glucose) into SPARQL queries, extending MarkLogic’s standard search capabilities.
- Programmatic TDE Generation
TDE templates were programmatically generated from JSON schemas, enabling seamless updates to entities and reducing manual maintenance.
- Custom Search API
A flexible API combined standard MarkLogic search with the new triple-based property search, allowing scientists to query across complex structures without constant index or schema rework.
- XLSX Export Library
A lightweight XQuery library (based on the Open XML standard) was developed to generate multi-sheet, styled Excel outputs, avoiding reliance on external services.
- Minimal Integration Impact
Data continued to flow into MarkLogic via custom REST extensions, ensuring that no downstream systems were disrupted.
The Outcomes
The modernization delivered both technical flexibility and business value.
AbbVie researchers can now run property-specific queries across complex datasets, cutting down the time and effort required to generate insights. Enhancements that once demanded structural changes are now supported natively, improving speed and agility.
The XLSX export capability quickly proved its value, and along with the custom search API, was reused across other AbbVie projects, including OMICS CDM. This extended the return on investment well beyond the original platform.
With programmatic TDEs and a flexible search layer, updates that once took days can now be completed in minutes, significantly reducing maintenance overhead and freeing IT teams for more strategic work. Researchers also reported high satisfaction, and project leaders recommended applying the approach to additional platforms across R&D.
Finally, the modernization delivered tangible cost savings by minimizing rework and avoiding external tools. AbbVie not only reduced development and testing costs but also positioned its research platform for long-term sustainability and scalability.
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