Lab instrumentation major Millipore has wooed scores of labs across the country with its flow cytometry techniques, which provide low sample consumption and vacuum based immuno detection that is faster and accurate. The company is known for offering instruments and equipment that offer both speed and accuracy in the tests conducted in pharma and biotech researches.
"Advancement of technology in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and life science research is occurring at a rapid pace. And we are all set to cater to the needs of high throughput, accurate and cost effective solutions," said Dr Aditya Sengupta, national manager, technology, bioscience, Millipore India.
Referring to the company's newly launched product SNAP i.d in India, he said: "This breakthrough concept from Millipore, which involves vacuum based immuno detection, has considerably brought down the time taken to validate the Western blotting detection method."
In fact one of the demands from the industry for their research and development (R&D) laboratories was to validate the Western blotting detection method and make the immuno detection process fast and accurate. Until very recently, the time required for this was five hours to working overnight. It resulted in colossal loss in productivity, with several such tests being done in the lab every week.
"For the first time in the history of western blotting, SNAP i.d, a convenient, time saving concept of vacuum based immuno detection, validates the Western detection method within just 20 minutes," he added.
SNAP i.d. was launched in India a few months ago and is popular in labs not only for its time saving benefit but also for its superior blots while consuming less of laboratory consumables.
Besides, the company has developed chemistry to study multiple parameters in the area of cardio vascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, diabetes and cancer. Its modern day flow cytometry techniques are looking at a small footprint and low sample consumption to operate and measure various processes, including those used in biopharmaceuticals for process validation. Millipore's solutions come with capillary based flow systems for such applications.
Millipore has also responded to the laboratory needs with several innovations through new filtration devices and consumables for HPLC and newer analytical technologies. Such analysis has gone further with new multi-screen product ranges such as UPLC and LC -MS technology for protein removal. These developments are being quickly accepted by industry, as researchers now get much clearer spectra from their UPLC and LC-MS samples.
Millipore in its strategic partnership role with customers in stem cell research and drug discovery now offers more than 30,000 new antibody, media and other kits in India. This was made possible by Millipore Corporation acquiring and introducing gold standard brands like Upstate, Chemicon and Linco for researchers.
Further, the company has also developed two new methods that establish lab scale ultra filtration as a fast and cost-effective means of achieving high titers of viruses. It can be used to concentrate viruses from cell culture supernatants, chromatography fractions and environmental sources.
Indicating that the company would go ahead with its R&D activities even in this troubled economic times, Rajiv Juneja, executive GM, corporate and marketing communications, Millipore India, said, "The uncertain global financial sentiment and belt-tightening measures in India are not impacting R&D funding much, as this core activity gives companies a strategic edge. In fact, cutting such funds in times of 'recession or slowdown' is myopic. In the race against time, by slowing down research work, would only result in helping competitors."