Waters Corporation and Spark Holland (Emmen, The Netherlands) have entered into a co-marketing agreement to promote an integrated solution for high volume clinical laboratories. These integrated systems are comprised of Waters mass spectrometers and Spark Holland's Symbiosis On-line SPE System under the control of Waters MassLynx Mass Spectrometry data acquisition, processing, and reporting software.

With this integrated solution high-volume labs can now automate sample processing, analysis and data reduction. This will enable high volume clinical and forensic laboratories worldwide to analyse samples faster, increase throughput and lower costs.

"We are pleased to enter into this co-marketing agreement with Spark Holland. The combination of on-line SPE using Waters Oasis sorbents together with our mass spectrometers is truly enabling for customers in high-throughput environments for automating and integrating sample preparation, separation and detection," said Michael Yelle, senior director of clinical operations at Waters Corporation.

Waters mass spectrometers combined with the Symbiosis front-end automation - all controlled from a single software package - is a big step towards a fully integrated analyser for the clinical market. Better workflow with less manual handling should improve throughput and quality of the analysis, said Rob Castien, president, Spark Holland.

Waters Clinical Business Operations group is dedicated to the adoption of LC/MS in the clinical market worldwide. Waters customers are supported by a scientific team in the UK and dedicated clinical support staff in the US and Europe. The company holds worldwide leading positions in three complementary analytical technologies of liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis. These markets account for approximately $5.0 billion of the overall $20 - $25 billion analytical instrument market.

Spark pioneered Solid Phase Extraction with on-line elution into HPLC and LC-MS systems in the 1980s, followed by its introduction to the market in the early 1990s. Since, the company has evolved to a world-class provider of innovative sample introduction, extraction and separation technology for analytical systems such as HPLC, MS, GC and NMR. Its installed base of OEM auto-samplers will this year exceed the 20,000 mark, while more than 750 automated on-line SPE systems are now operational around the globe.