Waters has recently introduced Xevo quadrupole time-of-flight (QTof) mass spectrometer (MS), an exact mass MS/MS benchtop instrument that is most sensitive for laboratory tests. The product was first unveiled and exhibited at the WCBP 2009 Conference in San Francisco in mid January.

With the Xevo QTof MS, the company has responded to the call for QTof technology that helps laboratories manage increasing demands.

"The product is expected to transform every stage of the analytical laboratory workflow to enable scientists to convert data into business-critical knowledge faster and with greater assurance. Businesses and independent labs demand that mass spectrometry obtain clear answers to complex problems and that instruments can be operated by a wide range of scientists," said KV Venugopalan, president, Waters India.

Aimed at transforming every stage of the analytical laboratory workflow, Xevo mass spectrometers are designed around the philosophy of 'engineered simplicity', which combines outstanding instrument performance with simplicity of operation to enable scientists to convert data into business-critical knowledge faster and with greater assurance.

Whilst the Xevo QTof offers an unparalleled combination of performance characteristics, its simple design challenges the notion that exact mass MS/MS has to be complex to deliver meaningful results.

Paired with Waters Acquity UltraPerformance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC), the Xevo QTof MS is the only commercially available MS system to give scientists one-of-a-kind UPLC/MSE performance - a novel, patented method of data acquisition that captures "all of the data all of the time" at unparalleled speeds to maximise the amount of information collected from minimal sample amounts.

With the introduction of the Xevo QTof MS, Waters has brought intelligent engineering and new levels of simplicity and productivity to every step of the analytical workflow to prepare, analyse, interpret and decide.

"According to our customers, the effects of the world's economic, resource and globalisation challenges are felt in the laboratories as much as any other part of an organization's mission-critical operations," said Venugopalan.

"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," he added.

In 1996, Waters invention of QTof technology represented a huge leap forward in how samples are analysed in the laboratory and in the amount of information available to scientists from a single MS/MS analysis. With this technology what took weeks of analysis and data interpretation can now be done in minutes.