RapidFire MS Used for Sphingosine Kinase Inhibitors in Whole Blood

In the Journal of Biomolecular Screening, a group of scientists published an article about using RapidFire and a HTS assay for sphingosine kinase inhibitors in blood.

The authors developed procedures to achieve homogeneous mixing of whole blood in 384-well plates and for a method requiring minimal manipulations to extract S1P from blood in 96- and 384-well plates prior to analyses using the RapidFire mass spectrometry system.

P-gp Inhibition Results 16x Faster Than LC-MS/MS

In this month’s Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, researchers from Bristol-Myers Squibb write about their achievement of an early liability P-gp inhibition screen that generates more than a thousand samples per day.

You’ll need to have a login to the Wiley online library to see the full article, but wanted to share an excerpt anyway: “The RF-MS/MS method was more than 16 times faster than the LC-MS/MS method but demonstrated similar sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility, linearity and robustness. P-gp inhibition results of multiple validation compounds obtained with this RF-MS/MS method were in agreement with those generated by both the LC-MS/MS method and the ³H-radiolabel assay. This method has been successfully deployed to assess P-gp inhibition potential as an important early liability screen for drug–transporter interaction.”

To learn more, visit our web page about RapidFire ADME analysis services, or read the article “Ultra-fast mass spectrometry based bio-analytical method for digoxin supporting an in vitro P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibition screen”

Ultrafast mass spectrometry based bioanalytical method for digoxin supporting an in vitro P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibition screenUltrafast mass spectrometry based bioanalytical method for digoxin supporting an in vitro P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibition screen

Epigenetic Screening Trends in Drug Discovery

There’s an interesting piece on epigenetics screening in the Spring 2011 Drug Discovery World called, “EPIGENETICS an emerging target class for drug screening”. The author, Dr. John Comley, is from HTStec, a market research consultancy.

In the article Dr. Comley shares results from HTStec’s June 2010 Screening Trends Report and also profiles vendors’ latest developments which includes RapidFire label-free technology and fee-for-service epigenetic screening offerings.

You can read customer case studies and watch our epigenetics talk to learn more about RapidFire Epigenetics Screening Programs.

Label-free Technology Q & A

Dr. William LaMarr, head of RapidFire Research and Contract Services, recently participated in a roundtable discussion about trends and future applications of label-free technology in drug discovery. You can read the article: Label Free Technology Roundtable,  on our website.

What do you think is the largest trend in the application of label-free technology?

Upcoming SBS 2011 show in Orlando

SBS 17th Annual Conference and Exhibition

Advancing the Science of Drug Discovery

Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center, Orlando, FL

March 27th-31st

Please stop by our booth #601

Remember BIOCIUS Life Sciences is now part of Agilent Technologies.

Also make sure to visit our poster #T338

Tuesday 12 -1:30

A Label-Free Screening Approach to the Histone Acetyltransferase Family

See you in Orlando!

Agilent Technologies Acquires BIOCIUS Life Sciences, Developer of the RapidFire High-Throughput Drug-Screening Technology

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 1, 2011 – Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced it has acquired BIOCIUS Life Sciences, Inc., developer of the unique RapidFire™ high-throughput mass spectrometry drug-screening platform for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical markets. Financial details were not disclosed.

BIOCIUS’ RapidFire drug-screening technology has successfully screened millions of compounds, providing results 10 to 100 times faster than traditional screening methods. Using high-throughput mass spectrometry and innovative microfluidics, the RapidFire system enables researchers to gain a fuller understanding of a drug’s biochemical properties, including potential liabilities in drug interactions.

“BIOCIUS’ unique RapidFire technology gives customers an unsurpassed ability to increase the effectiveness and reduce the cost of drug discovery and compound identification,” said Gustavo Salem, vice president of Agilent’s Biological Systems Division within the company’s Life Sciences Group. “With this technology and the team that developed it now part of Agilent, we can expand our reach in the pharmaceutical and clinical mass spec markets.”

“RapidFire instrumentation and research services are highly valued by leading drug discovery researchers around the globe,” said Jeffrey Leathe, former chairman and chief executive officer of BIOCIUS. “As we continued to leverage those relationships and our experience into current and new markets, the natural evolution of the company was to partner with a world-class organization to accelerate our application development and further market penetration. Agilent’s breadth of global resources and market strategy are the best fit for BIOCIUS to drive RapidFire into new markets going forward.”

Based in Wakefield, Mass., privately held BIOCIUS was formed in 2009 as a spinoff from BioTrove Inc. Named from the Greek word “bio” (life) and the Latin word “ocius” (faster), BIOCIUS provided products and services committed to speed and accuracy across a range of applications, including drug discovery and ADME. Thirteen of the top 14 biopharmaceutical companies use products from BIOCIUS. The company employed about 25 people, who have now joined Agilent.

BIOCIUS’ ultra high-speed automated valving, solid-phase extraction, and data-processing systems, when coupled with triple quadrupole or TOF/QTOF mass spectrometers, provide extremely high sample throughput for the biopharmaceutical market.

The company’s products include the Rapid Fire 200, RapidFire 300 and RapidFire 360 high-throughput mass spectrometry systems. Agilent and BIOCIUS jointly announced the introduction of the RapidFire 360 in May 2010 at the annual American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference.

The RapidFire 360 is designed for high-throughput screening of in vitro ADME assays. Combining the accurate mass capabilities of Agilent’s time-of-flight mass spectrometers and the unprecedented sample processing speed of RapidFire technology, the instrument has revolutionized in vitro ADME analysis by eliminating the method development bottleneck in drug discovery.

To learn more about the RapidFire product portfolio, visit www.agilent.com/lifesciences/biocius.

View the Press Release

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world’s premier measurement company and a technology leader in chemical analysis, life sciences, electronics and communications. The company’s 18,500 employees serve customers in more than 100 countries. Agilent had net revenues of $5.4 billion in fiscal 2010. Information about Agilent is available at www.agilent.com.

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NOTE TO EDITORS: Further technology, corporate citizenship and executive news is available at www.agilent.com/go/news.

BIOCIUS to present poster at MSACL in San Diego next week

BIOCIUS will be attending the 2011 MSACL conference next week in San Diego, where we will be presenting a poster: “Ultra-fast, Simultaneous Analysis of a Panel of Benzodiazepines in Human Urine Using an SPE-TOF System” on  Feb 7, 2011 (Monday) from  2:00-3:00PM.  Be sure to check it out!

Also stop by our booth to enter to win a $250 gift cad to Amazon: #18.

Won’t be attending the conference?  Register for our free webinar discussing some of the data from our poster presented at MSACL.

REGISTER NOW for this free 45 minute webinar in which you will learn how RapidFire technology in combination with time-of-flight mass spectrometry enables multiplexing of an entire panel of benzodiazepines in a single run with a sample cycle time <10 seconds.

The benzodiazepine class of drugs are becoming increasingly important for applications such as forensic toxicity evaluation.

This webinar will present recent data that demonstrates the use of RapidFire-TOF for benzodiazepine analysis and a comparison of data from this multiplexed exact-mass based method (Q-TOF) to single sample runs on a triple quadrupole (QqQ) system.

 

 

*BIOCIUS, RapidFire and associated logos and trademarks are property of BIOCIUS Life Sciences, Inc.  The information presented herein is intended for research use only and not for use in diagnostic purposes.

BIOCIUS to attend 2011 Lab Automation conference

BIOCIUS Life Sciences will attend the 2011 Lab Automation show in Palm Springs, California next week.  The show will be held at the Palm Spring convention center, January 29th – February 2nd.

BIOCIUS is booth # 466

Also stop by BIOCIUS Poster #TP56 Tuesday, February 1, 2011 from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm.  “Ultrafast SPE Integrated with TOF-MS Streamlines Workflow and Increases the Throughput of ADME Assay Analysis”

 

NEW Label-Free Webinar Line-Up for 2011

The New Year is off to a fast start as we’re working on two new drug discovery webinars for January and February.

On January 27, ADME Director Vaughn Miller and our technical team will present, “How to Eliminate MRMs with the RapidFire 360: A Technical Overview”. On February 17, stay tuned for “Analysis of a Panel of Benzodiazepines in Human Urine Using an SPE-TOF System.” You can get information on these talks and register here.

Happy Anniversary, nay New Year

It was December 2009 that the RapidFire business unit spun out of BioTrove and became BIOCIUS Life Sciences. Although the RapidFire technology and the team behind it have been around for 10 years, last year was our first full year as an independently owned life sciences organization.

Aside from continuing the core contract screening programs and RapidFire hardware manufacture, in 2010 BIOCIUS added a Japanese distributor, moved to a new facility, launched the new RapidFire RF360, opened a European subsidiary, expanded our ADME analysis offering, and brought on new RapidFire team members.

We are thankful to all our customers and collaborators for being the champions of accelerating program turnaround, eliminating sample backlog, and increasing researcher efficiency.

Cheers!