BioTrove Installs First European RapidFire® System at Boehringer Ingelheim and Obtains CE Mark for the Instrument

BioTrove, Inc. today announced its innovative RapidFire® High-Throughput Mass Spectrometry (RF-MS) screening platform was installed in its first European customer site at Boehringer Ingelheim in Biberach, Germany. The RapidFire system, which is being used for expanded in vitro ADME applications at Boehringer Ingelheim recently received Conformité Europeene (CE) and ETL Marks acknowledging mandated health, safety and environmental requirements were met, enabling marketing distribution across the European Union and in Canada. A second RapidFire system was also installed at Boehringer Ingelheim’s Laval, Canada site.

“RapidFire has allowed us to greatly streamline our workflow – our high-throughput screening of in vitro ADME samples is much faster using RapidFire than with our previous methods”, said Andreas Luippold, Lab Head (Department of Drug Discovery Support), Boehringer Ingelheim. “BioTrove’s RapidFire system will be an integral part of our drug discovery research helping us to focus our research efforts and resources on the best candidate compounds. Furthermore, the system helps us to be well prepared for future demands in the field of in vitro ADME.”

RapidFire provides label-free, biologically relevant data enabling researchers to identify lead compounds without the need for surrogate substrates. Similarly, lead compounds exhibiting possible deleterious competitive drug interactions can be detected and eliminated earlier in the drug discovery process. The system has proven its value as a primary screening method for difficult biochemical targets, a secondary screening technology of standard drug targets and a robust method for CYP inhibition studies. Requiring only six to eight seconds per sample for processing, RapidFire is significantly faster than traditional HPLC methods, providing mass spectrometry quality data at speeds approaching that of plate reader-based methods.

“Installation of our first European system is a great milestone for RapidFire and we are pleased to be collaborating with an innovative pharmaceutical partner such as Boehringer Ingelheim,” said Can “Jon” Özbal, Vice President and General Manager, BioTrove RapidFire Business Unit. “The CE and ETL Marks enable BioTrove customers access to the RapidFire system across the EU and Canada, greatly expanding the reach of our innovative platform for drug discovery research.”

Intertek, the world’s largest independent inspection and certification association, tested the RapidFire system and approved its application for the CE Mark, certifying the instrument meets European Union health, safety and environmental mandates. Intertek also recently awarded BioTrove the ETL Mark, indicating RapidFire meets North American product electrical safety standards and is now compliant to UL-61010-1, further extending the Company’s reach to Canada.