Waters Corporation Continues to Meet Today’s Challenges for Improved Laboratory Operations With New Products at Pittcon 2009

Against a backdrop of a worldwide economic recession, Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is demonstrating how its industry-leading analytical instruments and informatics products address today’s greatest scientific and business challenges at the 60th Pittsburgh Conference (Pittcon) on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, March 8 – 13, 2009.

“Pittcon 2009 promises to be like no other in its past simply because today, the stakes are higher,” said Dr. Rohit Khanna, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Waters Division. “In no uncertain terms, our customers are telling us they need to achieve more: more productivity, more efficiency, and more speed in all of their efforts. ACQUITY UPLC and Xevo MS systems, combined with Waters informatics and consumable chemistries, are responding to the full range of current laboratory challenges through unrivalled performance and proven reliability to truly redefine the analytical process.”

Waters’ headline offerings at Pittcon 2009 include the Xevo™ family of mass spectrometers, the Xevo TQ and Xevo QTof MS Systems, and an expanded suite of products for UltraPerformance LC® (UPLC®) aimed at bringing laboratories new levels of efficiencies. Additionally, Waters shares the spotlight with its latest technology addition, supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), by featuring products from TharSFC at the exhibition.

Xevo Family of Mass Spectrometers – Bringing the Power of Advanced MS to More Scientists
With Xevo benchtop mass spectrometers, Waters is making advanced-performance MS more accessible than ever -- regardless of who uses the instrument. Xevo mass spectrometers are designed around the philosophy of Engineered Simplicity™ which combines outstanding instrument performance with simplicity enabled by IntelliStart™ technology to allow scientists to convert data into business-critical knowledge faster and with greater assurance.

New to Pittcon this year, Waters® Xevo quadrupole time-of-flight (QTof) mass spectrometer (MS) is an exact mass MS/MS benchtop instrument that is the most sensitive benchtop QTof system ever developed. Paired with Waters ACQUITY® UPLC system, the Xevo QTof MS is the only commercially-available MS system to give scientists one-of-a-kind UPLC/MSE performance – a novel method of data acquisition that captures “all of the data all of the time” at unparalleled speeds to maximize the amount of information collected from minimal sample amounts.

Also new to Pittcon is the Waters Xevo TQ MS System, an advanced tandem quadrupole mass spectrometer that tackles the most demanding quantification applications for target compounds at low concentrations in highly complex and diverse samples. Waters Xevo TQ MS System is uniquely qualified to allow laboratories to conform to the new US Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for bioanalytical method validation. The intent of the guidance is to prevent errors due to matrix effects made during the toxicological assessment of a target compound or its metabolites; errors than can have life-threatening consequences during clinical trials.

With the Xevo family of mass spectrometers, Waters is combining advanced performance with ease-of-use to answer the need for laboratories to get more out of their investment in analytical technology.

“According to our customers, the effects of the world’s economic, resource and globalization challenges are felt in the laboratories as much as any other part of an organization’s mission-critical operations,” said Brian Smith, Vice President of Mass Spectrometry Operations for the Waters Division. “These challenges put even greater burdens on labs to answer complex questions faster with greater confidence using fewer resources than ever before. Consequently, today’s laboratory technology should be measured on its ability to improve lab productivity and decision-making if our customers are to be successful.”

UPLC Technology – Changing the Analytical Laboratory Since 2004
Five years ago at Pittcon 2004, Waters sparked a wave of innovation in analytical chemistry when it introduced its ACQUITY UPLC System, an entirely new category of liquid chromatograph based on novel, patented sub two-micron chromatography particles that has transformed the analytical laboratory in many ways.

“The introduction of the Waters ACQUITY UPLC system in 2004 was more than an innovative product introduction, it spurred a revolution in high performance liquid chromatography,” remarks Larry Schmid, President, Strategic Directions International, Los Angeles, California, consultants and advisors to the analytical instrument industry and publishers of Instrument Business Outlook newsletter. “ACQUITY UPLC inspired most other major HPLC suppliers to develop similar systems that have changed the dynamics of liquid separation in the lab, especially in relation to mass spectrometry sample introduction. The ACQUITY UPLC and other so-called "fast LCs" provide greatly improved resolution and faster analysis, something laboratory scientists desperately needed. So five years on, the HPLC marketplace is now fundamentally different thanks to Waters' groundbreaking product development effort.”

Since its introduction, Waters has installed thousands of UPLC systems, and the thousands of laboratories that have replaced HPLC with UPLC and as an inlet to mass spectrometers are enjoying the benefits.

“The speed that we’re getting is incredible and in our business, speed is money. We’re a production lab so we don’t have time to wait around or run samples overnight and pick up the results in the morning. Now I can run ACQUITY in one shift, get my results, and release the product—all in one day. This is a huge gain in productivity for us,” says Steve Lunetta, Manager, Quality Control Laboratory, PharmaVite LLC, San Fernando, California, the makers of Nature Made® brand vitamins and nutritional supplements.

A Newly Enhanced UPLC Product Portfolio
Marking the fifth anniversary of its launch, Waters has expanded its award-winning UPLC product portfolio and will have its entire complement of UPLC products on display during Pittcon 2009, March 8 – 13 in Chicago. They include the nanoACQUITY UPLC® system for life science applications; the PATROL™ UPLC Process analyzer, an at-line version for process monitoring; numerous compatible LC and quadrupole mass detectors; compatible high-performance triple, tandem, and quadrupole time-of-flight/ion mobility research-grade mass spectrometers; more than 50 column configurations and chemistries including newly-redeveloped ACQUITY UPLC columns, the result of Waters Designed for Six Sigma (DFSS) quality process; the TRIZAIC™ UPLC System with nanoTile™ Technology designed to deliver exceptional sensitivity for limited-sample, direct-flow, nanoscale protein separations; a new hand-held controller for managing system operations; and applications-specific UPLC/MS and UPLC/MS/MS system solutions for food safety, amino acid, intact protein, oligonucleotide, peptide, metabolite profiling, bioanalysis, impurity profiling, ADME screening, and proteomics analyses.

UPLC for At-Line Process Analysis
Designed with the same enabling technology platform as Waters ACQUITY UPLC System, PATROL UPLC Process Analyzer moves existing liquid chromatography (LC) analysis from off-line Quality Control (QC) laboratories directly to the manufacturing floor resulting in significant improvements in production efficiency with real-time analysis, reducing both process cycle times and assuring product quality.

At Pittcon 2009, Waters is introducing the PATROL UPLC Process Analyzer for at-line analysis to complement the on-line version introduced at Pittcon 2008.

For more information: www.waters.com/patrol.

UPLC for Nanoscale Protein Separations
Also making its Pittcon debut is the TRIZAIC UPLC System with nanoTile Technology. Designed to deliver exceptional sensitivity for limited-sample, direct-flow, nanoscale protein separations, the TRIZAIC UPLC System is for use with Waters SYNAPT™ High Definition MS™ and SYNAPT MS Systems. It combines novel microfluidic separation technology with Waters’ sub two-micron column chemistries, unique solvent delivery and comprehensive data management for both large- and small molecule applications. TRIZAIC represents a highly-intelligent, integrated systems approach to separation science fueled by the company’s unequalled UPLC technology.

"TRIZAIC is a way for us to take the complexity out of characterizing proteins using nanoscale chromatographic separations. This proprietary technology is directed at those scientists who are looking for the enhanced resolution that direct nanoflow UPLC brings to protein characterization, sensitivity and reproducibility," said Dr. Patricia Young, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Waters Division. "We expect this platform will significantly streamline the process of reproducibly identifying and characterizing proteins."

For more information: www.waters.com/trizaic.

UPLC - Smart Technology for a “Greener Laboratory”
With the world’s laboratories facing a critical acetonitrile shortage and seeking to reduce costs, the need for UPLC has never been greater. "Laboratory-dependent businesses and government agencies around the world are facing difficult decisions because there is simply not enough acetonitrile available to efficiently run their labs using traditional liquid chromatography technology," said Rohit Khanna, Vice President of Global Marketing for the Waters Division. “As these organizations evaluate their LC options, the ability to save up to 95% in solvent usage makes UPLC technology a smart solution to today's crisis to safeguard against future risk."

For more information: www.waters.com/waters/nav.htm?cid=10095088

More New Products at Pittcon …
Waters Empower 2 Business Intelligence Manager™ (BIM) is a web-based dashboard software solution that provides rapid analysis of critical chromatography performance data for faster, more qualified decisions on laboratory and business operations.

Designed with proven business intelligence concepts that have been successful across numerous industries, BIM’s intuitive interface allows lab managers and system administrators using Empower™ 2 Enterprise Chromatography Software to fully understand and exploit the strengths of their laboratories and identify areas that need added support.

Waters Atmospheric Pressure Gas Chromatography (APGC) Source allows laboratories to switch from LC/MS/MS to GC/MS/MS using the same QTof or tandem quadrupole mass spectrometer. With this added flexibility, scientists can analyze volatile and semi-volatile compounds of low and intermediate polarity traditionally analyzed by dedicated GC/MS instruments.

Switching from an electrospray ionization source in LC/MS/MS mode to the APGC source for GC/MS/MS takes less than five minutes and requires no tools. Once in place, the APGC source interfaces to a standard capillary GC chromatograph to deliver robust, high-sensitivity GC/MS/MS data.