NCBI
NCBI, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine at NIH, maintains public biomedical databases and analysis tools including PubMed, BLAST+, GenBank, and the Comparative Genomics Resource, serving researchers, clinicians, and educators worldwide free of charge.
- Company typePublic
- Founded1887
- HeadquartersBethesda, United States
- Headcount251–500
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What NCBI does
NCBI's strategic posture is that of a public-good platform rather than a competitive business: its priorities are database curation breadth, tool reliability, and global accessibility rather than revenue or market share. Strategic signals in the recent period include the April 2025 appointment of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as 18th NIH Director, the addition of the Comparative Genomics Resource to the product surface, sustained investment in BLAST+, and an NIH-wide website modernization initiative. With 501-1000 employees and a congressionally chartered mandate, NCBI operates as durable, government-backed infrastructure for the global biomedical research community.
NCBI firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- NCBI
- Legal name
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Website
- https://nih.gov
- Company type
- Public
- Founded year
- 1887
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 251–500 employees
- Short description
- NCBI, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine at NIH, maintains public biomedical databases and analysis tools including PubMed, BLAST+, GenBank, and the Comparative Genomics Resource, serving researchers, clinicians, and educators worldwide free of charge.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
NCBI industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Bioinformatics databases and computational biology tools
- NAICS
- Scientific Research and Development Services (5417), Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171)
- SIC
- Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Genetic & Genomic Testing (germline, somatic, carrier, pharmacogenomics) (HLAAALAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Genomics & Molecular Diagnostics (Trial Support) (HLAGAEAD), Molecular Diagnostics & Genomics Laboratories (HLAFAMAE)
Keywords
Where NCBI is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Bethesda
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
NCBI business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Public Government Funding: NCBI operates as a government-funded entity under the National Institutes of Health, supported by congressional appropriations and taxpayer funding. Services are provided free of charge to researchers, healthcare professionals, and the public worldwide.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free public access to all databases and tools |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels5 records
NCBI product offering
Product offeringCore offering
NCBI provides free public access to authoritative biomedical and genomic databases, including PubMed for literature, GenBank for genetic sequences, and BLAST+ for sequence similarity search. It also offers computational biology tools and APIs that enable researchers, healthcare professionals, and students worldwide to conduct genomic analysis, literature searches, and comparative biology research at no cost.
Product overview
NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) is a division of the National Library of Medicine at NIH that serves as a major international resource for biological and medical research data. NCBI provides access to a suite of databases, tools, and computational biology resources including PubMed, BLAST+, GenBank, and the Comparative Genomics Resource. The offering is a platform-plus-resources architecture where users access interconnected databases and analysis tools for genomic, biomedical, and bioinformatics research.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- PubMed: Free online database of biomedical literature citations and abstracts.
- BLAST+
- NCBI Bioinformatics Workflows
- NCBI Databases
Products and services
- PubMed A free search engine accessing the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics, maintained by NCBI for researchers, healthcare professionals, and the general public.
- BLAST+ A bioinformatics tool for comparing gene or protein sequences against databases to find regions of similarity, used by researchers for identifying homologous sequences and functional annotation.
- Comparative Genomics Resource An NCBI resource that facilitates comparative genomic analyses across species to understand evolutionary relationships and genomic conservation, targeted at computational biology researchers.
- GenBank An annotated collection of publicly available DNA sequences maintained by NCBI, used by researchers worldwide for genomic and genetic sequence analysis.
Companies that use NCBI
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
NCBI technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature1 record
NCBI partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP)flagshipAMP is a public-private partnership between NIH, FDA, multiple biopharmaceutical and life science companies, and non-profit organizations to transform the current model for developing new diagnostics and treatments. NIH and AMP partners share expertise and resources to enable best-informed contributions to science. NCBI resources support AMP data infrastructure and research coordination.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
NCBI competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Wellcome Sanger Institute: Sanger is a large, publicly funded genomics research institute that operates its own data platforms (e.g., COSMIC, Ensembl) and contributes heavily to shared genomic databases. It is comparable to NCBI as a publicly funded life-science data powerhouse but with a broader wet-lab research portfolio.
- Broad Institute: The Broad Institute is a leading genomics and biomedical research organization that develops widely used tools (e.g., GATK) and hosts major datasets (e.g., gnomAD). It overlaps with NCBI in serving the computational genomics community and contributing to shared reference resources.
- Allen Institute: The Allen Institute is a non-profit medical research organization producing large, openly available reference datasets (e.g., Allen Brain Atlas). It is comparable as a publicly minded, non-profit producer of high-value reference biological data.
- Joint Genome Institute (JGI): JGI is a DOE-funded user facility for genomic sequencing and analysis, producing large-scale datasets that often flow into NCBI's archives. It is comparable as a publicly funded genomics data producer, though its focus is on energy and environmental applications.
Emerging players
- DNAnexus: DNAnexus is a commercial cloud-based bioinformatics platform offering genomics data management and analysis for pharma, clinical, and research customers. It overlaps with NCBI in serving genomic data workflows but operates as a paid, enterprise SaaS rather than a free public resource.
- Galaxy Project: Galaxy is an open, web-based platform for accessible genomic data analysis that integrates public datasets (including those from NCBI). It is comparable as a community bioinformatics resource, though its focus is on user-facing analysis workflows rather than primary data archiving.
Direct peers
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB): SIB maintains widely used bioinformatics resources such as UniProt, STRING, and SWISS-MODEL. It is a publicly funded, non-profit bioinformatics infrastructure provider with a mission and operating model closely aligned to NCBI.
- National Genomics Data Center (NGDC, China): NGDC operates a portfolio of open genomic databases (e.g., GSA, BIG) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, serving as the primary national counterpart to NCBI/GenBank for genomic data submission, archiving, and analysis in China.
- DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ): DDBJ is one of the three founding partners (with GenBank and ENA) of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration. It offers a directly comparable public genetic sequence repository for researchers in Asia and globally.
- EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute): EMBL-EBI is the European equivalent of NCBI, maintaining complementary biological databases (e.g., ENA, UniProt, Ensembl) under a public-good model funded by EMBL member states. It is NCBI's closest international partner and most direct peer in mission, scope, and user base.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
NCBI social profiles
Digital presenceNCBI financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
NCBI leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
NCBI subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries27 records
NCBI funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
NCBI M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about NCBI
What does NCBI do?
NCBI provides free public access to authoritative biomedical and genomic databases, including PubMed for literature, GenBank for genetic sequences, and BLAST+ for sequence similarity search. It also offers computational biology tools and APIs that enable researchers, healthcare professionals, and students worldwide to conduct genomic analysis, literature searches, and comparative biology research at no cost.
Is NCBI a public or private company?
NCBI is a public company. It is classified as state government owned and is currently operating.
When was NCBI founded?
NCBI was founded in 1887. It employs 251 to 500 people.
Where is NCBI based?
NCBI is headquartered in Bethesda, United States, in the North America region.
How does NCBI make money?
One revenue line is on record: public Government Funding.
Who are NCBI's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Wellcome Sanger Institute, Broad Institute, Allen Institute and Joint Genome Institute (JGI). Emerging players are DNAnexus and Galaxy Project. Direct peers are Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), National Genomics Data Center (NGDC, China), DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) and EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute).
Does NCBI have an API?
No public API is recorded for NCBI.
What industry is NCBI in?
NCBI's product category is Bioinformatics databases and computational biology tools. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAAALAD, Genetic & Genomic Testing (germline, somatic, carrier, pharmacogenomics), with a secondary code of HLAGAEAD, Genomics & Molecular Diagnostics (Trial Support). Its NAICS code is 5417 and its SIC code is 8731.