Waters has installed the Synapt High Definition Mass Spectrometry (MS) System at the premises of the Swedish-based biotechnology firm Medivir AB. The system will help in yielding significant information to assist in the decision-making process. This will help the biotech major engaged in the area of protease inhibitor research for drug development of herpes, hepatitis C, HIV, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and high blood pressure.

"Medivir is constantly reviewing opportunities to improve research output both in terms of quantity and quality. This investment in the Waters Synapt HDMS instrument has been seen as a very important vehicle to increase research output and to provide high quality support for the discovery disciplines," said Dr. Bertil Samuelsson, vice president, Discovery Research, Medivir.

In terms of helping Medivir advance its research, the Synapt HDMS System carries great potential.

"The sensitivity of this instrument is significantly greater than the average quadruple time-of-flight instrument and gives us more complete metabolic profiles," informed Kurt Benkestock, senior research scientist, Analytical Chemistry Department, who supports many of Medivir's research efforts. "At one time, we relied on outside resources to give us the information we needed. Now with the Synapt HDMS System, we can acquire the data we need in house and move candidates into advanced development phases faster," he added.

After carefully evaluating all its options, Medivir chose Waters Synapt HDMS System coupled to a Waters ACQUITY UltraPerformance LC System over the conventional high-resolution, two-dimensional LC-MS technologies offered by other MS suppliers. "The reason we went with Waters Synapt System is that the instrument outperformed the others based on 22 performance criteria.

Synapt HDMS System provides structure elucidation of metabolites and impurities, ligand screening during early drug discovery, protein and peptide work, protein identification and studying post-translation modifications, and target characterization.

Waters introduced the Synapt HDMS System at the American Society of Mass Spectrometry annual meeting in Seattle in June of 2006. It is the first commercially-available mass spectrometer with the ability to analyze ions by their size, shape and charge in addition to mass. Other installations of the product include Cambridge University, Oxford University, Utrecht University, University of Leeds, Max Planck Institute, and the University of Warwick.