Waters Corporation and ACD/Labs Announce Agreement
Milford, MA (December 4, 2006)—
Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) and Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) Toronto, Canada, today announced an agreement to develop an automated method development solution for liquid chromatography (LC), and mass spectrometry (MS) integrating ACD/AutoChrom method development software with Waters® Empower™ 2 Chromatography Data software, ACQUITY UltraPerformance LC™ (UPLC™), and Alliance® High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) systems. The product will reduce the time it takes scientists to develop LC and LC/MS methods of analysis from weeks, to days or less.
ACD/AutoChrom is an automated chromatographic method development software solution that will interface with ACQUITY UPLC® or Alliance LC instruments through Empower 2 software, automating the method development process by running a series of intelligent experiments based on, and building upon, previously acquired data. This seamless connection between decision-making tools, and LC or LC/MS instrumentation control simplifies and streamlines the method development process considerably.
This new approach to method development is uniquely equipped to deal with complex samples, including those containing low-level impurities for which reference standards might not be available. Proprietary Mutual Automated Peak matching (MAP) technology in ACD/AutoChrom allows the analyst to track and match peaks during the development process, enabling positive peak identification and eliminating the need for individual standards for confirmation. Moreover, ACD/AutoChrom is the first such product that can simultaneously interpret and analyze data acquired from multiple detection techniques (LC/MS, LC/UV/Vis, LC/ELSD, and non-hyphenated detectors), greatly extending its versatility.
“We are delighted to be working with ACD/Labs, the premier provider of analytical chemistry software solutions,” said Craig Dobbs, Senior Manager market Development, Waters Corporation. “This integrated system solution will bring new capabilities to chromatographers to reduce the often difficult, tedious, and frustrating process of developing high-quality, robust LC methods. This level of efficiency and ease of use has never been available to chromatographers before and our customers should realize immediate productivity gains.”
“The key to the effectiveness of ACD/AutoChrom is connectivity to chromatography data systems,” added Michael Mc Brien, Chromatography Product Manager, ACD/Labs. “It’s very exciting to be able to connect to the world’s most popular chromatography data system in Empower 2.”
Preliminary results of the project will be presented at Pittcon 2007 in March. Versions of the completed product will be available for laboratories using Waters Empower 2 Software as an option with Waters ACQUITY™ UPLC, and Alliance Systems equipped with either a Waters photodiode array detector, or a Waters SQD single quadrupole mass spectrometer. Under the terms of the agreement, ACD/AutoChrom for Empower software will be offered and supported exclusively by Waters Corporation.
Previously, Waters and ACD/Labs collaborated on bringing chemical structure searching and drawing capability into Empower Software.
About Advanced Chemistry Development (www.acdlabs.com)
Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) is a chemistry software company offering solutions that truly integrate chemical structures with analytical chemistry information to produce ChemAnalytics®. ACD/Labs creates innovative software packages that aid chemical research scientists worldwide with spectroscopic validation of structures, elucidation of unknown substances, chromatographic separation, medicinal chemistry, preformulation of novel drug agents, systematic nomenclature generation, and chemical patenting and publication. Combined, ACD/Labs’ solutions create an analytical informatics system that provides dramatic feed-forward effects on the chemical and pharmaceutical research process. Founded in 1994, and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, ACD/Labs employs a team of over 140 dedicated individuals whose continual efforts carry ACD/Labs’ innovative technologies into pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, and materials companies throughout the world.
About Waters Corporation (www.waters.com)
Waters Corporation holds worldwide leading positions in three complementary analytical technologies – liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis. These markets account for approximately $5.0 billion of the overall $20 – $25 billion analytical instrument market.
