It is really great the MDL and Tripos are getting together to further their economic interest and to supply the chemical industry with a needed facility to better face the information explosion. In this way the MDL market acquires more expandability and never reaches saturation kinetics because they are selling to the same old faces. Quite a few good people come from smaller colleges and enter the pharmaceutical market. Scale the database to something large pharm firm would not use due to the risk of missing something crucial.
Offer academia a triannual update of the database instead of an annual update.
Offer academia a useful package with diminished capabilities. Your aim is to get the students hooked and make a little more money initially with the promise of greater marketability.